It is commonly held that Kant, with his 1798 essay The Conflict of the Faculties, relinquishes some progressive stances and retreats to conservative positions. According to several interpreters, this is especially evident from Kant’s discussion of moral progress and public use of reason. Kant avers that moral progress can only occur through state-sanctioned education “from top to bottom” and entrusts the emergence of a state endowed with the relevant resolution and ability to “a wisdom from above” (7:92-93). According to numerous (...) interpreters, this call for state intervention and the accompanying surrender to a superhuman wisdom manifest Kant’s retreat from initially republican to later conservative positions. In Kant’s previous writings, the notion of public use of reason indicates the unrestricted freedom to communicate one’s thoughts, provided that the communication does not take place in the exercise of one’s function as a state official, and potentially encompasses all adult men. Instead, in The Conflict of the Faculties, Kant contrasts university professors’ freedom to make public use of their reason with the other public officials’ obligation “to uphold whatever […] the crown sanctions for them to expound publicly” (07:08). Thus, according to several scholars, Kant ends up disenfranchising the vast majority of people from the public use of reason and adjusting an emancipatory notion to the absolutist conception of speech and civil service. On my reading, with The Conflict of the Faculties, Kant neither retreats to conservative positions nor softens any progressive tenets of critical philosophy. On the contrary, I intend to show that a) the project of a state-sanctioned education constitutes Kant’s republican rebuttal of conservative positions on their ground, and is fully in keeping with critical philosophy; b) Kant sets forth a new notion of public use of reason that reverses the order of moral progress presented in his previous writings, but retains all its emancipatory character. I intend to support my interpretation by a) conducting a rhetorical analysis showing how Kant’s rhetoric aims to persuade the ruler that his interests are best served by fostering the regulative ideas of pure practical reason as discovered by critical philosophy; b) analysing Kant’s use of the term ‘public’ (both as the adjective ‘öffentlich’ and the noun ‘Publikum’) and showing how it retains its wide scope and emancipatory function and even expands them to areas previously subjected to legitimate censorship. (shrink)

1. When we face a choice among conflicting actions, it is necessary to prioritize one action over others. This paper explores the issue of whether there is a universal priority, and if so, how we c...

The extraordinary parallel between the psychological theory of reversals (Apter, 1982) and the anthropological theory of anti-structure (Turner, 1982)-- both derived independently and almost simultaneously from entirely different kinds of evidence and research-- would seem to point to something profound and universal in human experience which has been curiously neglected in the behavioural sciences and entirely ignored in consciousness studies. What I will do here is to introduce reversal theory, show how it applies to ritual, and then compare it with (...) Victor Turner's well-known approach to the very same topic. Reversal theory has in fact been used to elucidate many diverse social phenomena, for example criminal violence, military combat, sexual behaviour, family relationships, soccer hooliganism, organizational culture, leadership, team sports, social advocacy and classroom management (see review in Apter, 2001a). The present paper extends these ideas to ritual for the first time, and makes reference especially to the work of Turner and his idea of cultural inversions (Turner, 1969). Reversal theory is also about inversions, but the inversions in this case (i.e. reversals) occur at the level of individual psychology and are identified initially as experiential rather than behavioural or social. This paper will explore the relationship between these two kinds of reversal, psychological and anthropological. (shrink)

[Presented at the 52nd Annual Conference of the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy (SPEP), University of Oregon, 24-26 October. Part of the panel Events, Actions and the Problem of Agency in the Wake of Deleuze’s Logic of Sense, organized in collaboration with Sean Bowden and James Williams.] In this paper I will bring the positions of Gilles Deleuze and Paul Ricoeur into proximity with each other in order to draw out points of conflict. I do not aim to solve (...) these conflicts, nor to develop them into a full clash. Rather, I will show that both Ricoeur and Deleuze develop a theory of novelty that can be characterized as a reversal of Platonism. These theories are not opposed per se, but they differ in orientation. Deleuze situates novelty in the virtual event. This virtual event can be understood as a singular point of transition that transforms one system into another. Or to catch the event in a somewhat more concrete image, it is a kind of metamorphosis (in Kafka’s sense). In contrast, Ricoeur situates novelty in human actions that are played out as a fruitful tension between two poles. This tension opens up a field of potentiality in which new ideas and novel meanings can emerge. Ricoeur has analysed this tension on many levels. Its most basic structure can be found in what Ricoeur calls a living metaphor. This living metaphor is itself something ‘in action’; it brings two opposed semantic fields into a fruitful tension with each other. This tension reveals a previously unnoticed proximity between these two semantic fields, without destroying their distance. In this way a new, third semantic field is opened up that is only given in potential. Ricoeur argues that it is within tensions like this that generative differences arise, resulting in new ideas and novel meanings. The main point of divergence between Deleuze and Ricoeur can therefore be framed in two contrasting pairs: virtual event versus human action; point of transition versus tension (or: metamorphosis versus metaphor). (shrink)

Why did such highly abstract ideas as truth, knowledge, or justice become so important to us? What was the point of coming to think in these terms? This book presents a philosophical method designed to answer such questions: the method of pragmatic genealogy. Pragmatic genealogies are partly fictional, partly historical narratives exploring what might have driven us to develop certain ideas in order to discover what these do for us. The book uncovers an under-appreciated tradition of pragmatic genealogy which cuts (...) across the analytic-continental divide, running from the state-of-nature stories of David Hume and the early genealogies of Friedrich Nietzsche to recent work in analytic philosophy by Edward Craig, Bernard Williams, and Miranda Fricker. However, these genealogies combine fictionalizing and historicizing in ways that even philosophers sympathetic to the use of state-of-nature fictions or real history have found puzzling. To make sense of why both fictionalizing and historicizing are called for, the book offers a systematic account of pragmatic genealogies as dynamic models serving to reverse-engineer the points of ideas in relation not only to near-universal human needs, but also to socio-historically situated needs. This allows the method to offer us explanation without reduction and to help us understand what led our ideas to shed the traces of their practical origins. Far from being normatively inert, moreover, pragmatic genealogy can affect the space of reasons, guiding attempts to improve our conceptual repertoire by helping us determine whether and when our ideas are worth having. (shrink)

Past public announcement operators have been defined in Hoshi and Yap :259–281, 2009) and Yap, to describe an agent’s knowledge before an announcement occurs. These operators rely on branching-time structures that do not mirror the traditional, relativization-based semantics of public announcement logic, and favor a historical reading of past announcements. In this paper, we introduce reverse public announcement operators that are interpreted on expanded models. Our model expansion adds accessibility links from an epistemic model \ to a filtrated submodel of (...) the canonical model for \. Here \ is the minimal normal modal logic together with \ axioms for the universal operator U. This yields a highly general pre-announcement version of \ that makes our operators potentially useful for studying non-standard interpretations of rescinded announcements in PAL. Indeed, we find that our reverse announcement operators cannot be represented by product update, and that they have an intimate connection with the knowledge forgetting of Zhang and Zhou :1525–1537, 2009). We show that the logic resulting from adding reverse announcements to PAL is sound and complete. (shrink)

An important open problem in Reverse Mathematics is the reduction of the first-order strength of the base theory from IΣ1IΣ1 to IΔ0+expIΔ0+exp. The system ERNA, a version of Nonstandard Analysis based on the system IΔ0+expIΔ0+exp, provides a partial solution to this problem. Indeed, weak Königʼs lemma and many of its equivalent formulations from Reverse Mathematics can be ‘pushed down’ into ERNA, while preserving the equivalences, but at the price of replacing equality with ‘≈’, i.e. infinitesimal proximity . The logical principle (...) corresponding to weak Königʼs lemma is the universal transfer principle from Nonstandard Analysis. Here, we consider the intermediate and mean value theorem and their uniform generalizations. We show that ERNAʼs Reverse Mathematics mirrors the situation in classical Reverse Mathematics. This further supports our claim from Sanders [19] that the Reverse Mathematics of ERNA plus universal transfer is a copy up to infinitesimals of that of WKL0. We discuss some of the philosophical implications of our results. (shrink)

Elementary Recursive Nonstandard Analysis, in short ERNA, is a constructive system of nonstandard analysis with a PRA consistency proof, proposed around 1995 by Patrick Suppes and Richard Sommer. Recently, the author showed the consistency of ERNA with several transfer principles and proved results of nonstandard analysis in the resulting theories (see [12] and [13]). Here, we show that Weak König's lemma (WKL) and many of its equivalent formulations over RCA₀ from Reverse Mathematics (see [21] and [22]) can be 'pushed down' (...) into the weak theory ERNA, while preserving the equivalences, but at the price of replacing equality with equality 'up to infinitesimals'. It turns out that ERNA plays the role of RCA₀ and that transfer for universal formulas corresponds to WKL. (shrink)

The thin set theorem for n-tuples and k colors states that every k-coloring of $[\mathbb {N}]^n$ admits an infinite set of integers H such that $[H]^n$ avoids at least one color. In this paper, we study the combinatorial weakness of the thin set theorem in reverse mathematics by proving neither $\operatorname {\mathrm {\sf {TS}}}^n_k$, nor the free set theorem imply the Erdős–Moser theorem whenever k is sufficiently large. Given a problem $\mathsf {P}$, a computable instance of $\mathsf {P}$ is universal (...) iff its solution computes a solution of any other computable $\mathsf {P}$ -instance. It has been established that most of Ramsey-type problems do not have a universal instance, but the case of Erdős–Moser theorem remained open so far. We prove that Erdős–Moser theorem does not admit a universal instance. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Malament (2004) employs a time reversal transformation that differs from the standard one, without explicitly arguing for it. This is a new and important understanding of time reversal that deserves arguing for in its own right. I argue that it improves upon the standard one. Recent discussion has focused on whether velocities should undergo a time reversal operation. I address a prior question: What is the proper notion of time reversal? This is important, for it will (...) affect our conclusion as to whether our best theories are time-reversal symmetric, and hence whether our spacetime is temporally oriented. *Received February 2007; revised March 2008. †To contact the author, please write to: Department of Philosophy, Yale University, P.O. Box 208306, New Haven, CT 06520-8306; e-mail: jill.north@yale.edu. (shrink)

Este artículo busca comprender las relaciones e intercambios entre filosofía y ciencia, analizando un caso concreto: el uso que hace Bergson del argumento de Boltzmann contra la reversibilidad o recurrencia del universo (“paradoja de Zermelo”), apoyando indi- rectamente su concepción de la irreversibilidad del universo asentada en un élan vital. Criticamos que Bergson, en su interpretación, convierta en “imposibilidad absoluta” lo que Boltzmann asienta sólo como “imposibilidad práctica”. Mostraremos que el filósofo francés distorsiona el argumento, dejando de lado dos puntos (...) fundamentales: a) la particular posición epistemológica de Boltzmann respecto a las teorías científicas y su relación con la experiencia, b) el atomismo que sirve de base al argumento de Boltzmann, atomismo que Bergson rechaza. Concluiremos que el argumento de Boltzmann no es válido en el marco metafísico (epistemológico y ontológico) de Bergson. Esto contribuirá a una mejor comprensión de los problemas que surgen en los intercambios conceptuales entre ciencia y filosofía. (shrink)

A collection of essays written by arts and humanities scholars across disciplines, this book argues that higher education has been compromised by its uncritical acceptance of our culture's standards of productivity, busyness, and speed. Inspired by the Slow Movement, contributors explain how and why university culture has come to value productivity over contemplation and rapidity over slowness. Chapter authors argue that the arts and humanities offer a cogent critique of fast culture in higher education, and reframe the discussion of the (...) value of their fields by emphasizing the dialectic between speed and slowness. (shrink)

The program of Reverse Mathematics (Simpson 2009) has provided us with the insight that most theorems of ordinary mathematics are either equivalent to one of a select few logical principles, or provable in a weak base theory. In this paper, we study the properties of the Dirac delta function (Dirac 1927; Schwartz 1951) in two settings of Reverse Mathematics. In particular, we consider the Dirac Delta Theorem, which formalizes the well-known property \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} (...) \begin{document}$${\int_\mathbb{R}f(x)\delta(x)\,dx=f(0)}$$\end{document} of the Dirac delta function. We show that the Dirac Delta Theorem is equivalent to weak König’s Lemma (see Yu and Simpson in Arch Math Log 30(3):171–180, 1990) in classical Reverse Mathematics. This further validates the status of WWKL0 as one of the ‘Big’ systems of Reverse Mathematics. In the context of ERNA’s Reverse Mathematics (Sanders in J Symb Log 76(2):637–664, 2011), we show that the Dirac Delta Theorem is equivalent to the Universal Transfer Principle. Since the Universal Transfer Principle corresponds to WKL, it seems that, in ERNA’s Reverse Mathematics, the principles corresponding to WKL and WWKL coincide. Hence, ERNA’s Reverse Mathematics is actually coarser than classical Reverse Mathematics, although the base theory has lower first-order strength. (shrink)

Explaining the emergence of life is perhaps central and the most challenging question in modern science. Within this area of research, the emergence and evolution of the genetic code is supposed to be a critical transition in the evolution of modern organisms. The canonical genetic code is one of the most dominant aspects of life on this planet, and thus studying its origin is critical to understanding the evolution of life, including life’s emergence. In this sense it is possible to (...) view the ribosome as a digital-to-analogue information converter. Why the translation apparatus evolved, is one of the enduring mysteries of molecular biology. Assuming the hypothesis that during the emergence of life evolution had to first involve autocatalytic systems, which only subsequently acquired the capacity of genetic heredity, in the present article we discuss some aspects and causes of the possible emergence of digital, discrete information arising from analogue information realized in the intra- and inter-molecular interactions throughout molecular evolution. How such reverse translation was achieved at a molecular level is still unclear. The results of such debates and investigations might shift current biological paradigms and might also have a momentous significance for modern philosophy in understanding our place in the universe. (shrink)

In summary, the question of how to construe the procedure called reversibility cannot be given an absolute answer. No one moral interpretation of the principle is universally applicable, that is, applicable to all moral issues. The decision concerning which to apply cannot be made a priori, but only in context - that is, only when we are faced with a particular moral problem. Moreover, there appears to be no rule which would enable us to choose which version is correct in (...) a particular case. It is a matter of judgment.That the various versions represent a moral progression from lower to higher constructions is debatable. We have seen that the altruism of reversibility3 - the ethic of care - may recommend itself in some personal relations to the point of making either version of reversibility4 irrelevant. Similarly, it is not clear that reversibility3 is always higher than reversibility2. For example, parents in trying to decide what is morally best for a young child should often - in the spirit of the second construction - substitute the judgment of their mature selves for the judgment of the immature self of the child. Moreover, this substitution may not be justifiable in terms of either utility or autonomy.If I seem to have ignored reversibility1 in this discussion that is because I consider it outside morality: it is, if anything, a principle of self-interested calculation. If Baier is correct in holding that we teach children to think morally when we get them to take the standpoint of others, that requires, I believe, getting them beyond the stage of crude reciprocity. If Piaget and Kohlberg are correct in their developmental claims, we cannot immediately teach children reversibility4 but must help them progress through the other two versions. There is some basis for thinking that children can transcend egoism and sympathize with others much earlier than Kohlberg allows - an important consideration in the development of a system of moral education. That point has been pursued by Michael Pritchard in his critique of Kohlberg. Pritchard, p 44. My point is a different one: even granting Kohlberg's theory of development (which asserts, for example, that a particular cognitive ability is required to think like a Kantian), it does not follow that the moral thinking which accompanies the highest cognitive stage is morally superior to the moral thinking which accompanies the lesser cognitive stages. That it is cognitively easier to master reversibility3 than reversibility4 does not settle the question of which is morally superior. Rather than arguing about which moral version of reversibility is morally best- a pointless debate if the desirability of a version is understood as contingent upon appropriateness with respect to context - we should instead celebrate the richness of the concept of reversibility. In teaching students the moral point of view by getting them to put themselves in another's place, we would not be asking them to master a rigid formula, but rather to be sensitive to the decisional context and to make a thoughtful judgment about which version of reversibility is most appropriate to that context. We would not be teaching them either moral relativism or moral absolutism, but the complexity of trying to make a moral decision by applying an ancient and philosophically rich ethical principle. (shrink)

Jan Patočka became politically active for the first time as a spokesperson of the dissident movement Charter 77. In this capacity he wrote several essays, the first of which, entitled "On the Matters of The Plastic People of the Universe and DG 307", I interpret as the explanation and justification of his turn toward political engagement. The following article is a reading of Patočka's essay that pays particular attention to a peculiar formal feature of the essay – namely that (...) it's presented as a reversal of Dostoevsky's short story "The Dream of a Ridiculous Man". In reversing this story, Patočka shows us the two basic ways of human life and explains his political engagement as an action taken on behalf of the properly human way of life, which he calls "life in truth" or "the responsible life". The purpose of his political engagement thus wasn't defending human rights, but defending life in truth, to which human rights provide suitable conditions. "On the Matters…" also presents Patočka's assessment of the Communist regime with clarity and severity not seen elsewhere in his writings, and shows a shift in his views of youth and youthful rebellion. (shrink)

If the legitimacy of international humanitarian and human rights law lies, in part at least, in its capacity to confront dehumanising actions in the modern world, we may speak of the limits of this achievement. It is well known that people who commit genocide or crimes against humanity typically dehumanise those against whom their crimes are committed and that the humanitarian and human rights dimensions of international law were developed in response to the radicalisation of this phenomenon. The expanded scope (...) of international criminal justice caught a cosmopolitan imagination because it seemed to restore an idea of humanity in the face of organised attempts to eradicate the very idea of universal humanity. It also caught a cosmopolitan imagination because it seemed to restore the humanity of the perpetrators as well. They were no longer to be treated as beasts liable to the 'punishment' of the victors but to be brought to trial, held accountable for their deeds and converted back into responsible human beings. Today, however, I suggest that we face a double temptation: in confronting those who commit crimes against humanity to represent them as inhuman monsters rather than responsible human beings; in our compassion for victims of crimes against humanity, it is to represent them merely as victims and not as moral and political subjects. In either case, there can arise a reversal of the problem we are trying to address. I do not suggest this tendency is inevitable but where it is present it indicates an insufficiently reflective relation to international law. I address the problem of reversal through a discussion of three authors (Rawls, Habermas and Arendt) and three issues ('pariah peoples', 'criminal states' and 'monstrous perpetrators'). (shrink)

Physicists routinely claim that the fundamental laws of physics are 'time symmetric' or 'time reversal invariant' or 'reversible'. In particular, it is claimed that the theory of quantum mechanics is time symmetric. But it is shown in this paper that the orthodox analysis suffers from a fatal conceptual error, because the logical criterion for judging the time symmetry of probabilistic theories has been incorrectly formulated. The correct criterion requires symmetry between future-directed laws and past-directed laws. This criterion is formulated (...) and proved in detail. The orthodox claim that quantum mechanics is reversible is re-evaluated. The property demonstrated in the orthodox analysis is shown to be quite distinct from time reversal invariance. The view of Satosi Watanabe that quantum mechanics is time asymmetric is verified, as well as his view that this feature does not merely show a de facto or 'contingent' asymmetry, as commonly supposed, but implies a genuine failure of time reversal invariance of the laws of quantum mechanics. The laws of quantum mechanics would be incompatible with a time-reversed version of our universe. (shrink)

In his recent book, Time and Chance, David Albert claims that by positing that there is a uniform probability distribution defined, on the standard measure, over the space of microscopic states that are compatible with both the current macrocondition of the world, and with what he calls the “past hypothesis”, we can explain the time asymmetry of all of the thermodynamic behavior in the world. The principal purpose of this paper is to dispute this claim. I argue that Albert's proposal (...) fails in his stated goal—to show how to use the time‐reversible dynamics of Newtonian physics to “underwrite the actual content of our thermodynamic experience” (Albert 2000, 159). Albert's proposal can satisfactorily explain why the overall entropy of the universe as a whole is increasing, but it does not and cannot explain the increasing entropy of relatively small, relatively short‐lived systems in energetic isolation without making use of a principle that leads to reversibility objections. (shrink)

Despite Hunsberger’s apology for Newbigen’s use of Polanyi, Newbigen in The Gospel in a Pluralist Society reverses Polanyi’s essential elements of heuristic passion and universal intent. The outcome is a misunderstanding of the common ground and differences between science and theology and a stifling and narrowing theology of cultural plurality. In contrast, Charles McCoy’s federal theology and understanding of Polanyi shows an approach of openness yet grounding in the biblical God present in the believed-in realities of global life.

Review of John Stillwell, Reverse Mathematics: Proofs from the Inside Out. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2018, pp. 200. ISBN 978-0-69-117717-5 (hbk), 978-0-69-119641-1 (pbk), 978-1-40-088903-7 (e-book).

This is yet another attempt to indicate a fatal flaw in modern philosophy, and to suggest a framework for a viable and constructive “postmodern” philosophy. It is a well-reasoned, well-written book, enjoyable to read despite its density and the doggedness of the sometimes surprising argument. The book’s surprises come from the fact that its core ideas derive from a “postmodernized” Aristotle, and that an odd lot of modern philosophers are constructively put to work showing the cogency of Aristotelian insights one (...) would have expected them to reject. (shrink)

The fundamental question in reverse mathematics is to determine which set existence axioms are required to prove particular theorems of mathematics. In addition to being interesting in their own right, answers to this question have consequences in both effective mathematics and the foundations of mathematics. Before discussing these consequences, we need to be more specific about the motivating question.Reverse mathematics is useful for studying theorems of either countable or essentially countable mathematics. Essentially countable mathematics is a vague term that is (...) best explained by an example. Complete separable metric spaces are essentially countable because, although the spaces may be uncountable, they can be understood in terms of a countable basis. Simpson gives the following list of areas which can be analyzed by reverse mathematics: number theory, geometry, calculus, differential equations, real and complex analysis, combinatorics, countable algebra, separable Banach spaces, computability theory, and the topology of complete separable metric spaces. Reverse mathematics is less suited to theorems of abstract functional analysis, abstract set theory, universal algebra, or general topology.Section 2 introduces the major subsystems of second order arithmetic used in reverse mathematics: RCA0, WKL0, ACA0, ATR0 and – CA0. Sections 3 through 7 consider various theorems of ordered group theory from the perspective of reverse mathematics. Among the results considered are theorems on ordered quotient groups, groups and semigroup conditions which imply orderability, the orderability of free groups, Hölder's Theorem, Mal'tsev's classification of the order types of countable ordered groups. (shrink)

Abstractabstract:What lessons can Catholic theology learn from Shinran (1173–1263), one of the leading Japanese proponents of Pure Land Buddhism, in matters regarding the universality and particularity of religions? How can Catholic theology move from Christological and ecclesiological exclusivism to a position that acknowledges religious pluralism? This essay attempts an answer to these questions by comparing the shift in Catholic pre-Vatican II theology of religion from exclusivism to pluralistic inclusivism to Shinran's abandonment of his monastic life and its practices at the (...) Tendai monastery of Enryakuji on Mount Hiei in 1201 at the age of twenty-nine and adoption of the teaching of Hōnen (1133–1212) on the recitation of the Nembutsu is all that is required for rebirth in the Pure Land.Part I of the essay gives an exposition of the Catholic theology of Christ as the unique and universal Savior, the church as the necessary and universal sign and instrument of salvation, the reversal of ecclesiological exclusivism by Vatican II's affirmation of the possibility of salvation for non-Christians, and the theological developments in Catholic theology that lead to Vatican II's inclusivist theology of religion.Part II begins with a narrative of Shinran's journey toward religious pluralism starting from his rejection of the monastic tradition and its practices to gain rebirth in the Pure Land and his six-year discipleship of Hōnan from whom he learned that salvation cannot be earned by one's effort and that salvation is available to all. Next follows an exposition of Shinran's teaching under four expressions: kyō, gyō, shin, and shō. Central to Shinran's teaching and three-stage conversion is the Amida Buddha's Primal Vow or Eighteenth Vow to save all sentient beings, which is the "other-power" and not the "self-power" that saves. Finally, attention is drawn to the kind of people that followed Shinran's teaching.Part III studies the areas where Catholic theology can learn from Shinran and Shin Buddhism by drawing the parallels between Shinran's context and that of Catholic theologians that require a new interpretation of traditional teachings on Christ and the church, between the Primal Vow and the Holy Spirit, and between Shinran's targeted audience and the "poor" for whom God has a preferential love. (shrink)

The libertarian attribute of Thaler and Sunstein’s nudge theory (Nudge: improving decisions about health, wealth, and happiness. Yale University Press, New Haven, 2008) is one of the most important features for its candidature as a new model for public policy-making. It relies on the reversibility of choices made under the influence of nudging. Since the mind is articulated into two systems, the choice taken by System 1 is always reversible because it can be overridden by the deliberative and corrective (...) role of System 2. This article does not aim to criticise the whole theory of nudge and neither to assess its practical efficacy as a policy-making tool. Rather it intends to show that there are doubts that the specific claim of reversibility is correct for a subset of nudges called “System 1 nudges” (Sunstein in The ethics of influence, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2016). And that therefore, in this case, the libertarian claim seems little justified. The thrust of my argument contests the truth of the main pillar of the libertarian claim, namely the dual-process theory of mind. I will show that even the minimal version of dual reasoning, namely the Type 1 and Type 2 processes proposed by Evans and Stanovich (Perspect Psychol Sci 8(3):223–241, 2013), is weakened by psychological and neural data. (shrink)

“There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom”, said the title of Richard Feynman’s 1959 seminal conference at the California Institute of Technology. Fifty years on, nanotechnologies have led computer scientists to pay close attention to the links between physical reality and information processing. Not all the physical requirements of optimal computation are captured by traditional models—one still largely missing is reversibility. The dynamic laws of physics are reversible at microphysical level, distinct initial states of a system leading to distinct (...) final states. On the other hand, as von Neumann already conjectured, irreversible information processing is expensive: to erase a single bit of information costs ~3 × 10−21 joules at room temperature. Information entropy is a thermodynamic cost, to be paid in non-computational energy dissipation. This paper addresses the problem drawing on Edward Fredkin’s Finite Nature hypothesis: the ultimate nature of the universe is discrete and finite, satisfying the axioms of classical, atomistic mereology. The chosen model is a cellular automaton with reversible dynamics, capable of retaining memory of the information present at the beginning of the universe. Such a CA can implement the Boolean logical operations and the other building bricks of computation: it can develop and host all-purpose computers. The model is a candidate for the realization of computational systems, capable of exploiting the resources of the physical world in an efficient way, for they can host logical circuits with negligible internal energy dissipation. (shrink)

A collection of newly commissioned papers on themes from David Albert's Time and Chance (HUP, 2000), with replies by Albert. Introduction [Barry Loewer, Brad Weslake, and Eric Winsberg] I. Overview of Time and Chance 1. The Mentaculus: A Probability Map of the Universe [Barry Loewer] II. Philosophical Foundations 2. The Metaphysical Foundations of Statistical Mechanics: On the Status of PROB and PH [Eric Winsberg] 3. The Logic of the Past Hypothesis [David Wallace] 4. In What Sense Is the Early (...) Universe Fine-Tuned? [Sean M. Carroll] 5. The Meta-Reversibility Objection [Christopher J. G. Meacham] 6. Typicality versus Humean Probabilities as the Foundation of Statistical Mechanics [Dustin Lazarovici] 7. The Past Hypothesis and the Nature of Physical Laws [Eddy Keming Chen] 8. On the Albertian Demon [Tim Maudlin] III. Underwriting the Asymmetries of Knowledge and Intervention 9. Reading the Past in the Present [Nick Huggett] 10. Causes, Randomness, and the Past Hypothesis [Mathias Frisch] 11. Time, Flies, and Why We Can’t Control the Past [Alison Fernandes] 12. The Concept of Intervention in Time and Chance [Sidney Felder] Conclusion [David Albert]. (shrink)

The discovery of a second genesis of life besides the one on Earth, this time on Mars, would have profound scientific and philosophical implications. Scientifically, it would provide a second example of biochemistry and of evolutionary history. Many important biological questions may be answerable through the comparison of biochemistry between the life forms on the two planets. Philosophically, the discovery of a second genesis of life in our solar system would suggest that the phenomenon of life is distributed throughout the (...) universe. We could finally be confident that we are not alone. To protect a second genesis as we search for it, the robotic and human exploration of Mars should be done in a way that is biologically reversible, i.e., we must be able to undo our contamination of Mars if we discover a second genesis of life there. It is important to note that human exploration can be done in a way that is biologically reversible. Further, the discovery of a second genesis of life on Mars poses new questions in ethics. One question is: what ethical consideration is due to an alien life form when that life is distinctly different from Earth life, and the members of that life are no more advanced than microorganisms? Will we choose to terraform Mars to enhance the richness and diversity of the indigenous life we find there? In considering our answers to these questions, we should note that for most of Earth’s history our ancestors were microscopic. (shrink)

In their seeking of simplicity, scientists fall into the error of Whitehead's "fallacy of misplaced concreteness." They mistake their abstract concepts describing reality for reality itself--the map for the territory. This leads to dogmatic overstatements, paradoxes, and mysteries such as the deep incompatibility of our two most fundamental physical theories--quantum mechanics and general relativity. To avoid such errors, we should evoke Whitehead's conception of the universe as a universe-in-process, where physical relations perpetually beget new physical relations. Today, the (...) most promising interpretations of quantum mechanics exemplify this Whiteheadian idea, formalizing physical systems, and the universe itself, as ongoing histories of actualizations of potential states, where actual states and potential states exist in mutually implicative relation as two separate categories of reality—an idea first proposed by Aristotle and rehabilitated by Heisenberg. In these interpretations, the classical conception of a history as a derivative story about fundamental physical objects is reversed: the classical physical object becomes the derivative story about fundamental histories of quantum states. The consistent histories interpretation of Robert Griffiths and the decoherent histories interpretation of Roland Omnès are cardinal examples of this approach to quantum mechanics. Another example, the relational realist interpretation, begins with the decoherent histories approach and formalizes it explicitly as a Whiteheadian interpretation, taking his “algebraic method” and applying it to quantum mechanics via algebraic topology. This branch of mathematics can be thought of as a “de-concretized” geometry in that it focuses only on the logical relations among objects and regions (and relations of these relations) rather than the fixed magnitudes of lines, planes, and other such rigid intervals. It has all the robust logical structure of geometry yet allows for an elasticity of relations that makes topological mathematical structures inherently immune misplaced concretization. (shrink)

According to recent astrophysical evidence, the present universe has been forming for the past 14 billion years. New kinds of objects have emerged even recently. The reverse side of this creativity is the observed and predicted decay of all objects. Will new structures form in the future? This is a question of hope, which is not a scientific term but originates from experience on the level of personal and religious perceptions requiring participation. Anticipating the future, science and theology of (...) creation meet, and the tension between practical knowledge and visionary hope enters a constructive dialogue. (shrink)

French existentialism is commonly regarded as the main impetus for the universal significance that Kafka gained in postwar France. A leading critic, Marthe Robert, has contended that this entailed an outright rejection of interest in the biographical, linguistic and historical dimension of Kafka's writing in order to interpret it as a general expression of the human condition. This article will consider this claim in the light of Sartre's original conceptualization of a dialectic of the universal and the particular in the (...) intercultural mediation of the work of art. The notion of a 'true universality' proposed by Sartre as a defence of Kafka during the 1962 Moscow Peace Conference will allow for a reassessment of Robert's criticism in a paradoxical reversal of terms: it is precisely the inevitable loss of context and the appropriation within one's own particular situation which allow the literary work to elucidate a foreign historical context and thereby gain a wider significance. Rather than a universal meaning of the work, Sartre's concept points to literature's potential to continually release specific meanings in new contexts. (shrink)

We use a reverse Easton forcing iteration to obtain a universe with a definable well-order, while preserving the GCH and proper classes of a variety of very large cardinals. This is achieved by coding using the principle ◊ $_{k^ - }^* $ at a proper class of cardinals k. By choosing the cardinals at which coding occurs sufficiently sparsely, we are able to lift the embeddings witnessing the large cardinal properties without having to meet any non-trivial master conditions.

The article aims to map the contemporary techno-social networks, together with delineation of the algorithmic governmentality, computational unconscious, the epistemic structure of the Eurocentric matrix of power haunted by its own repetition of the constant abyss of horrors, only to search for gestures of resistance. Gestures of resistance, contrary to the false conviction of capitalist realism, can be found everywhere, including in Jordan Peele's Nope (2022). Through a variety of motifs, themes, and cultural and cinematic references, Peele creates a resistance (...) image, i.e., an image that resists the historical trajectory of the violence of the digital colonial matrix of knowledge. In particular with Nope, in which the history of racial violence is disentangled by evoking the relation between the entanglement of capital and epistemic violence embodied in an all-devouring predator UFO. But Nope is also about visualizing silenced histories. Indeed, to strive to capture UFO with the camera is to break away from modernity as a totalizing onto-epistemology and in this register generating a false universal subject of a Man. (shrink)

The object of this cosmological inquiry is to determine, on the basis of a given line element, the behavior of test-particles and light-signals, the results of observations of them, and inferences drawn therefrom. The author describes, by means of a single geometrical model, the relationship between the expanding and contracting spherical frame, the static frame, and the expanding flat frame, as various representations of the de Sitter universe. The reversibility objection to the elliptical interpretation of the de Sitter (...) class='Hi'>universe is answered with the argument that irreversible laws can be based on the statistics of microscopically reversible systems on condition that the statistical theory be autonomous in defining time's arrow. Assuming that test particles and light-signals are time-like and null geodesics, respectively, Schrödinger then considers their behavior in more general expanding universes. He asks not whether the geodesic assumption is a consequence of the field equations of gravitation, but whether it follows from the wave theory of light and matter. Thus the book concludes by complementing the treatment of light and matter in expanding universes from the particle point of view with a treatment from the wave point of view. The exposition is forceful and clear; no snares will beset the reader familiar with the rudiments of Einstein's general theory. --M. F. (shrink)

This article explores the relations between the idea of deep incarnation and scientific ideas of an informational universe, in which mass, energy, and information belong together. It is argued that the cosmic Christologies developed in the vein of Cappadocian theology (fourth century) and the Franciscan theologian Bonaventure (thirteenth century) can be interpreted as precursors of an informational worldview by consistently blending “formative” and “material” aspects of creativity. Reversely, contemporary sciences of information can enlarge the scope of the contemporary view (...) of deep incarnation. I propose three hypotheses for showing how and why. First, mass, energy, and information have an equal causal importance for explaining reality. Second, just as transformation presupposes communication, so communication presupposes information. Third, contemporary science can elucidate seminal concerns of the idea of deep incarnation, insofar as informational structures pave the way for information capture, communication, and transformation. At the level of organismic life, new features of embodied cognition and emotion come up, important for understanding the organismic depth of the concrete incarnation in Jesus of Nazareth. (shrink)

The existence of White Hole (WH) has been suggested by Schwarzschild solution to the Einstein field equation as a time-reversed Black Hole (BH), besides there has not been observational evidence for their existence yet. Our idea of the “inverse universe”, in which we introduce the time-reversed kinematics as another geometric state, can explain that WH should appear in such a geometry after a matter falls into a BH. In this work, we present a new operation for WH conversion from (...) BH, and by using it the nearly infinity point on the universe, for instance the inside of BH, is geometrically connected to the inside of WH on the inverse universe. Such a conversion is useful to provide the simple solution to the problem of “information loss” in BH. Furthermore, we find another conversion point as the prior geometric state to the Big Bang, and we propose a new cosmology of cyclic universe. (shrink)

In this paper is constructed an analogue of the square of opposition for propositions about relations between two non-empty sets. Unlike the classical square of opposition, the proposed scheme uses all logically possible syllogistic constants, formulated in V.I. Markin’s universal language for traditional positive syllogistic theories. This scheme can be called “Logical lantern”. The basic constants of this language are representing the five basic relations between two non-empty sets: equity, strict inclusion, reversed strict inclusion, intersection and exclusion (considered are only (...) the relations between sets, but not the relations of the sets to the universe). The other relations between sets are combinations (disjunctions) of the basic ones. There are 32 constants and 32 respective propositions, and the proposed diagram expresses and/or allows to deduce the logical relations among those propositions. The constructed scheme, making it possible to visually see the logical relations among propositions about relations between two non-empty sets, allows us to suggest considering logical relations not discussed previously: many-place Aristotelian-like logical relations among propositions: exhaustive _n_-place contrariety and exhaustive _n_-place subcontrariety (_n_ is a natural number, $n>2$ ). (shrink)

In the Italian universities, there was traditionally a strong alliance between natural philosophy and medicine, which however was all to the advantage of the latter; its teachers were better regarded and better paid than others in the faculty of Arts and Medicine, and this led to career paths that sought out the teaching of medicine as soon as possible. This article examines a reversal of this trend observable in sixteenth-century Bologna and some other Italian universities , leading to careers concentrating (...) on natural philosophy and on the interpretation of Aristotelian works. It appears that financial incentives were part of the context leading to specialization in philosophy. An appendix listing the careers of nearly 200 teachers of natural philosophy in Bologna between 1340 and 1600 illustrates the developments. (shrink)

In the past 25 years or so, the issue of ethical universalizability has figured prominently in theoretical as well as practical ethics. The term, 'universaliz ability' used in connection with ethical considerations, was apparently first introduced in the mid-1950s by R. M. Hare to refer to what he characterized as a logical thesis about certain sorts of evaluative sentences (Hare, 1955). The term has since been used to cover a broad variety of ethical considerations including those associated with the ideas (...) of impartiality, consistency, justice, equality, and reversibility as well as those raised in the familar questions: 'What if everyone did that?' and 'How would you like it if someone did that to you? But this recent effloresence of the use of the term 'universalizability' is something that has deep historical roots, and has been central in various forms to the thinking about morality of some of the greatest and most influential philosophers in the western tradition. While the term is relatively new, the ideas it is now used to express have a long history. Most of these ideas and questions have been or can be formulated into a principle to be discussed, criticized, or defended. As we discuss these ideas below this prin ciple will be stated on a separate numbered line. The concepts of justice and equality were closely linked in Greek thought. These connections between these two concepts are apparent even in two authors who were hostile to the connection, Plato and Aristotle. (shrink)