Hasil untuk "Metaphysics"

J. Butler

W. Quine

R. L. Kochnev

The article contains a historical-philosophical review of recent receptions of Cartesian substantial dualism as an approach to solve the mind-body problem. It examines the genesis of Descartes’ dualistic metaphysics, its core arguments (including the modal argument of conceivability), and its characteristic systematic challenges such as the problem of the causal interaction between heterogeneous substances (the so-called ‘scandal of interactionism’). The author considers alternative interpretations of the Descartes’ approach and the Cartesianism: interactionism, occasionalism and concurrentism. Particular attention is paid to the critique of the substance dualism in contemporary debates like the problem of other minds, epistemic asymmetry, mereological arguments, and the thesis of conceptual autonomy of the mental. It is shown that substance dualism, despite its internal contradictions, remains the starting point for most recent dualist and physicalist conceptions of consciousness.

Livio Rossetti

The themes of the so-called Palinode have often produced different levels of disorientation. For this reason, I considered it necessary to start from the relationship between the Palinode and the three metaphysical dialogues par excellence (Phd., R. and Smp.). In this relationship, factors of discontinuity no doubt prevail, but the memorable creativity of the Palinode powerfully suggests not to dismiss the issue hastily. However, once the Palinode is concluded, why does the enthusiasm with which Platonic Socrates had evoked “World 2” in the Palinode dissolve in an instant? The sudden distancing that follows seems unmotivated and is therefore difficult to account for. In view of that, I argue that the post-Palinode section of the Phaedrus is marked by a very clear desire to look forward, to the present, and not back, so as to say things that are (or could be) significant for Plato’s contemporaries. A special attention is then paid to the new, and impressively creative, idea of rhetoric that surfaces in Phdr. 261ab and 264c. A  section on orality and writing follows. Here I maintain that this does not go at all in the direction indicated by the masters of the so-called Tubingen School. I then argue that the Phaedrus is aimed at several (but primarily two) different types of audience and that not every goal was fully reached by Plato – which, if you think about it, is not surprising.

Alexandre Le Nepvou

This article develops a novel framework for modal logic based on the idea of stratified actualization, rather than the classical model of global possible worlds. Traditional Kripke semantics treat modal operators as quantification over fully determinate alternatives, neglecting the local, dynamic, and often asymmetric nature of actualization processes. We propose a system Stratified Actualization Logic (SAL) in which modalities are indexed by levels of ontological stability, interpreted as admissibility regimes. Each modality operates over a structured layer of possibility, grounded in the internal coherence of transitions between layers. We formally define the syntax and semantics of SAL, introduce its axioms, and prove soundness and completeness. Applications are discussed in connection with temporal becoming, quantum decoherence domains, and modal metaphysics. The result is a logic that captures the ontological structure of actualization without recourse to abstract possible worlds, offering a stratified alternative to standard modal realism.

James Brusseau

Today's ethics of privacy is largely dedicated to defending personal information from big data technologies. This essay goes in the other direction. It considers the struggle to be lost, and explores two strategies for living after privacy is gone. First, total exposure embraces privacy's decline, and then contributes to the process with transparency. All personal information is shared without reservation. The resulting ethics is explored through a big data version of Robert Nozick's Experience Machine thought experiment. Second, transient existence responds to privacy's loss by ceaselessly generating new personal identities, which translates into constantly producing temporarily unviolated private information. The ethics is explored through Gilles Deleuze's metaphysics of difference applied in linguistic terms to the formation of the self. Comparing the exposure and transience alternatives leads to the conclusion that today's big data reality splits the traditional ethical link between authenticity and freedom. Exposure provides authenticity, but negates human freedom. Transience provides freedom, but disdains authenticity.

Mahault Albarracin, Sonia de Jager, David Hyland et al.

The concept of power can be explored at several scales: from physical action and process effectuation, all the way to complex social dynamics. A spectrum-wide analysis of power requires attention to the fundamental principles that constrain these processes. In the social realm, the acquisition and maintenance of power is intertwined with both social interactions and cognitive processing capacity: socially-facilitated empowerment grants agents more information-processing capacities and opportunities, either by relying on others to bring about desired policies or ultimately outcomes, and/or by enjoying more information-processing possibilities as a result of relying on others for the reproduction of (material) tasks. The effects of social empowerment thus imply an increased ability to harness computation toward desired ends, thereby augmenting the evolution of a specific state space. Empowered individuals attract the attention of others, who contribute to increasing the scale of their access to various policies effectuating these state spaces. The presented argument posits that social power, in the context of active inference, is a function of several variables. As a result of its power-amplifying effects, this extended computational ability also buffers against possible vulnerabilities. We propose that individuals wield power not only by associating with others possessing desirable policies, but also by enhancing their ability to intake and compute information effectively. This dual mechanism is argued to create a cyclical, reinforcing pattern wherein the empowered are able to incrementally expand the scope of policies and state spaces available to them while minimizing risk-exposure.

Dmytro Sepetyi

The article analyses post-Popperian debates about the problem of demarcation. The case is made that Karl Popper’s proposition to demarcate empirical science from the rest («metaphysics») on the basis of falsifiability as the criterion of empirical character of theories remains a tenable way of seeing the most valuable aspect of the character of the scientific enterprise. It is explained that for the falsifiability criterion to be adequate for the purpose, we should consider it, as Popper did, as two-aspect — involving the logical content of theories and the critical attitude of researchers. Although falsifiability, in this sense, is not sufficient to neatly demarcate science from non-science, it can be considered as the most important necessary condition, which can be supplemented by some further requirements, for an empirical hypothesis to count as part of the body of science. In particular, it is argued that Lee McIntyre’s proposition to see empirical science as a matter of what he calls «scientific attitude» perfectly fits with this falsifiability-based perspective. William Bartley’s and Harry Laudan’s deflationary approaches to the demarcation problem are criticised as failing to recognise the practical significance of distinguishing what is and what is not empirical science, and the necessity of some theoretical grounding (however imperfect) for practicing this distinction. The suggestions of Joseph Agassi, Imre Lakatos, and Thomas Kuhn purported at the improval of Popper’s demarcational proposition are discussed, and the author’s own proposition is advanced and explained. It is also pointed out that Popper’s remark that the distinctive feature of scientific theories is openness to criticism and modification in its light serves as the basis for a wider conception of science, without the qualification «empirical».

Herman Cappelen, Josh Dever

Can humans and artificial intelligences share concepts and communicate? 'Making AI Intelligible' shows that philosophical work on the metaphysics of meaning can help answer these questions. Herman Cappelen and Josh Dever use the externalist tradition in philosophy to create models of how AIs and humans can understand each other. In doing so, they illustrate ways in which that philosophical tradition can be improved. The questions addressed in the book are not only theoretically interesting, but the answers have pressing practical implications. Many important decisions about human life are now influenced by AI. In giving that power to AI, we presuppose that AIs can track features of the world that we care about (for example, creditworthiness, recidivism, cancer, and combatants). If AIs can share our concepts, that will go some way towards justifying this reliance on AI. This ground-breaking study offers insight into how to take some first steps towards achieving Interpretable AI.

G. Harman

Álvaro Mozota Frauca

In this paper I argue that the fundamental aspect of our notion of time is that it defines an order relation, be it a total order relation between configurations of the world or just a partial order relation between events. This position is in contrast with a relationalist view popular in the quantum gravity literature, according to which it is just correlations between physical quantities that we observe and which capture every aspect of temporality in the world, at least according to general relativity. I argue that the view of time as defining an order relation is perfectly compatible with the way general relativity is applied, while the relationalist view has to face some challenges. This debate is important not only from the perspective of the metaphysics of space and time and of how to interpret our physical theories, but also for the development and understanding of theories of quantum gravity.

Mahendra Samarawickrama

Consciousness is a sequential process of awareness which can focus on one piece of information at a time. This process of awareness experiences causation which underpins the notion of time while it interplays with matter and energy, forming reality. The study of Consciousness, time and reality is complex and evolving fast in many fields, including metaphysics and fundamental physics. Reality composes patterns in human Consciousness in response to the regularities in nature. These regularities could be physical (e.g., astronomical, environmental), biological, chemical, mental, social, etc. The patterns that emerged in Consciousness were correlated to the environment, life and social behaviours followed by constructed frameworks, systems and structures. The complex constructs evolved as cultures, customs, norms and values, which created a diverse society. In the evolution of responsible AI, it is important to be attuned to the evolved cultural, ethical and moral values through Consciousness. This requires the advocated design of self-learning AI aware of time perception and human ethics.

Tim Button

Hilary Putnam once suggested that "the actual existence of sets as 'intangible objects' suffers... from a generalization of a problem first pointed out by Paul Benacerraf... are sets a kind of function or are functions a sort of set?" Sadly, he did not elaborate; my aim, here, is to do so on his behalf. There are well-known methods for treating sets as functions and functions as sets. But these do not raise any obvious philosophical or foundational puzzles. For that, we first need to provide a full-fledged function theory. I supply such a theory: it axiomatizes the iterative notion of function in exactly the same sense that ZF axiomatizes the iterative notion of set. Indeed, this function theory is synonymous with ZF. It might seem that set theory and function theory present us with rival foundations for mathematics, since they postulate different ontologies. But appearances are deceptive. Set theory and function theory provide the very same judicial foundation for mathematics. They do not supply rival metaphysical foundations; indeed, if they supply metaphysical foundations at all, then they supply the very same metaphysical foundations.

Raoni W. Arroyo, Jonnas R. B. Arenhart

`Shallow' and `deep' versions of scientific realism may be distinguished as follows: the shallow realist is satisfied with belief in the existence of the posits of our best scientific theories; by contrast, deep realists claim that realism can be legitimate only if such entities are described in metaphysical terms. We argue that this methodological discussion can be fruitfully applied in Everettian quantum mechanics, specifically on the debate concerning the existence of worlds and the recent dispute between Everettian actualism and quantum modal realism. After presenting what is involved in such dispute, we point to a dilemma for realists: either we don't have the available metaphysical tools to answer the deep realist's demands, and realism is not justified in this case, or such demands of metaphysical dressing are not mandatory for scientific realism, and deep versions of realism are not really required.

Nicholas Kluge Corrêa, Nythamar Fernandes De Oliveira

Counterfactuals have become an important area of interdisciplinary interest, especially in logic, philosophy of language, epistemology, metaphysics, psychology, decision theory, and even artificial intelligence. In this study, we propose a new form of analysis for counterfactuals: analysis by algorithmic complexity. Inspired by Lewis-Stalnaker's Nicholas Corrêa 2 Manuscrito-Rev. Int. Fil. Campinas, 2022. Possible Worlds Semantics, the proposed method allows for a new interpretation of the debate between David Lewis and Robert Stalnaker regarding the Limit and Singularity assumptions. Besides other results, we offer a new way to answer the problems raised by Goodman and Quine regarding vagueness, context-dependence, and the non-monotonicity of counterfactuals. Engaging in a dialogue with literature, this study will seek to bring new insights and tools to this debate. We hope our method of analysis can make counterfactuals more understandable in an intuitively plausible way, and a philosophically justifiable manner, aligned with the way we usually think about counterfactual propositions and our imaginative reasoning.

Francois-Igor Pris

We suggest a contextual realist interpretation of relational quantum mechanics. The principal point is a correct understanding of the concept of reality and taking into account the categorical distinction between the ideal and the real. Within our interpretation, consciousness of the observer does not play any metaphysical role. The proposed approach can also be understood as a return to the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, corrected within the framework of contextual realism. The contextual realism allows one to get rid of the metaphysical problems encountered by various interpretations of quantum mechanics, including the relational one.

A. Bird

M. S. Kavyani, H. Razmi, H. Parsania

After the advent of the theory of special relativity, the existence of absolute time in nature was rejected within the society of physics. In recent decades, William Lane Craig has endeavoured to offer an interpretation of the empirical evidence that support the theory of relativity while maintaining the concept of absolute time. His interpretation, however, is based upon supernatural presuppositions due to which it cannot be accepted as a scientific argument. Here, after explaining Craig's view, we attempt to reconstruct his explanation for absolute time using the concept of general substantial motion of nature, well-known in Mulla Sadra's philosophy as the most important approach in Islamic philosophy; thereby, proving general time for the natural world. Although Craig considers some evidence from modern physics in his reasoning for absolute time, in this paper, after pointing to some evidence, it is discussed that the approach used here better bridges the gap that exists between the metaphysics and the physics of the argument.

Christopher Gregory Weaver

I show how Hamilton's philosophical commitments led him to a causal interpretation of classical mechanics. I argue that Hamilton's metaphysics of causation was injected into his dynamics by way of a causal interpretation of force. I then detail how forces remain indispensable to both Hamilton's formulation of classical mechanics and what we now call Hamiltonian mechanics (i.e., the modern formulation). On this point, my efforts primarily consist of showing that the orthodox interpretation of potential energy is the interpretation found in Hamilton's work. Hamilton called the potential energy function the force-function because he believed that it represents forces at work in the world. Multifarious non-historical arguments for this orthodox interpretation of potential energy are provided, and matters are concluded by showing that in classical Hamiltonian mechanics, facts about potential energies of systems are grounded in facts about forces. Thus, if one can tolerate the view that forces are causes of motions, then Hamilton provides one with a road map for transporting causation into one of the most mathematically sophisticated formulations of classical mechanics, viz., Hamiltonian mechanics.

Mauro Dorato

I begin by examining the question of the quantum limits of knowledge by briefly presenting the constraints of the theory that derive from its mathematical structure (in particular the no-go theorems formulated by von Neumann and Kochen and Specker). I then argue that these theorems reflect on a formal level those practical and experimental settings that are needed to come to know the properties of physical systems. In particular, I discuss some aspects of this relationist and contextualist conception of reality by comparing, in their apparent diversity, Bohr holistic and Rovelli relationist interpretation of the formalism, that deep down share a unifying metaphysics of dispositions and propensities. Both interpretations are based on the widely shared fact that quantum mechanics does not describe previously definite quantities. In the final part I show that, as a consequence of a relationist and perspectival approach to quantum mechanics, the quantum state of the universe regarded as an isolated system cannot be known in principle, so that the universe must be described from within by dividing it into two arbitrary parts. This is in fact the only way in which any two systems can exchange information by being physically correlated.