This paper aims at a phenomenological analysis of trust. We argue that trust has a transcendental dimension in that it functions as a condition of possibility of the basic ego-world relation. Tacit for the most part in ordinary experience, it comes forth in its problematicity in schizophrenia spectrum disorders. People experiencing psychic disturbances lose trust in the continuity and the mineness of lived experience and conceive the world as uninhabitable. In order to address the transcendental problem of trust, we first (...) carry out a static analysis of trust as perceptual faith and we show that it is founded in the functioning of a transcendental ground. In a second step, we proceed with a genetic analysis drawing on Husserl’s manuscripts on the awakening of the self, on early childhood, and Richir’s recent phenomenological readings of D. W. Winnicott. We situate the archaic experience of trust in an originarily intersubjective and affective dimension, where the parental environment functions as a transcendental matrix for the early development of a yet inchoative self. By doing so, we aim to sketch out the major lines of a transcendental history of trust in the early stages of human experience. (shrink)

Contemporary phenomenological psychopathology has raised questions concerning selfhood and its possible alterations in schizophrenia spectrum disorders. Although the notion of the self is central to several accounts of anomalies, it remains a question how exactly the radically minimal experiential features of selfhood can be altered. Indeed, the risk is to reduce the notion of selfhood so drastically, that it can no longer account for alterations of experience. Here we propose to give thickness to the minimal self. To do this we (...) first discuss Sartre’s phenomenological definition of coenesthesia as the translucent matter of consciousness articulating it with the notion of existential feelings. We then draw on the historical research on coenesthesia to dig deeper in this translucent materiality identified as the element of the body. We show that selfhood, even in its most minimal level, must be conceived of with a specific elemental thickness, corresponding to a phenomenological materiality of embodiment. We argue that a phenomenological reading of coenesthesia as the bodily element of ipseity can shed a new light on the anomalies of self-experience. (shrink)

"Cet ouvrage collectif présente le dialogue entre de jeunes chercheurs en phénoménologie et Alexander Schnell, phénoménologue contemporain ; à partir de son ouvrage paru en 2020, Le Clignotement de l'être. Il défend la vivacité de la phénoménologie transcendantale aujourd'hui, en tant que méthode philosophique qui interroge les secrets de la subjectivité et son rapport à la réalité, au fil conducteur des concepts d'intentionnalité, de réduction, de générativité, d'absolu, et d'histoire. La question directrice qui rassemble les contributions réunies ici est la (...) suivante : quand le phénoménologue effectue la réduction phénoménologique et fait l'expérience du transcendantal comme tel, à quelle réalité fait-il face?"--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

The act of animal killing affects the human psyche in manners that are culturally contingent. Throughout history, societal attitudes towards the taking of animal lives have mostly been based on deference and/or dominion. Postdomestic societies have evolved in fundamentally different ways. Meat production is abundant yet concealed, animals are categorized and stereotyped, and slaughter has become a highly disquieting activity. Increased awareness of postdomestic meat production systems raises a moral polemic and provokes disgust in some consumer segments. Overall, a heterogeneous (...) set of solutions has emerged to deal with the societal upset and cognitive dissonance caused by animal slaughter. This includes the so-called carnism approach, a rise in animal welfare programs, a market demand for reassuring narratives, a rehabilitation of the metier of farmers and butchers, crowd butchering, neo-ritualism and home slaughter, the biotechnological exploration of “cultured meat” and “pain-free meat”, entomophagy, “meatless meat”, and the increasing proliferation of vegan and vegetarian lifestyles. (shrink)

(1990). Uncertainty as a Technique of the Exercise of Power: An Approach to the Question of Transition. World Futures: Vol. 29, Transition in Eastern Europe, pp. 47-67.

Completed in 1983, this work culminates nearly half a century of the late Alfred Tarski's foundational studies in logic, mathematics, and the philosophy of science. Written in collaboration with Steven Givant, the book appeals to a very broad audience, and requires only a familiarity with first-order logic. It is of great interest to logicians and mathematicians interested in the foundations of mathematics, but also to philosophers interested in logic, semantics, algebraic logic, or the methodology of the deductive sciences, and to (...) computer scientists interested in developing very simple computer languages rich enough for mathematical and scientific applications. The authors show that set theory and number theory can be developed within the framework of a new, different, and simple equational formalism, closely related to the formalism of the theory of relation algebras. There are no variables, quantifiers, or sentential connectives. Predicates are constructed from two atomic binary predicates (which denote the relations of identity and set-theoretic membership) by repeated applications of four operators that are analogues of the well-known operations of relative product, conversion, Boolean addition, and complementation. All mathematical statements are expressed as equations between predicates. There are ten logical axiom schemata and just one rule of inference: the one of replacing equals by equals, familiar from high school algebra. Though such a simple formalism may appear limited in its powers of expression and proof, this book proves quite the opposite. The authors show that it provides a framework for the formalization of practically all known systems of set theory, and hence for the development of all classical mathematics. The book contains numerous applications of the main results to diverse areas of foundational research: propositional logic; semantics; first-order logics with finitely many variables; definability and axiomatizability questions in set theory, Peano arithmetic, and real number theory; representation and decision problems in the theory of relation algebras; and decision problems in equational logic. (shrink)

This paper is an introduction: in particular, to algebras of relations of various ranks, and in general, to the part of algebraic logic algebraizing quantifier logics. The paper has a survey character, too. The most frequently used algebras like cylindric-, relation-, polyadic-, and quasi-polyadic algebras are carefully introduced and intuitively explained for the nonspecialist. Their variants, connections with logic, abstract model theory, and further algebraic logics are also reviewed. Efforts were made to make the review part relatively comprehensive. In some (...) directions we tried to give an overview of the most recent results and research trends, too. (shrink)

Intercultural Pragmatics studies how language systems are used in social encounters between speakers who have different first languages and cultures, yet communicate in a common language. The field first emerged in the early 21st century, joining two seemingly antagonistic approaches to pragmatics research: the cognitive-philosophical approach, which considers intention as an a priori mental state of the speaker, and the sociocultural-interactional approach, which considers it as a post factum construct created by both speaker and hearer though conversation. Istvan Kecskes, an (...) early proponent of intercultural pragmatics, was among the first to propose merging the two to form the socio-cognitive approach now core to the field. In Intercultural Pragmatics, the first book on the subject, Kecskes establishes the foundations of the field, boldly combining the pragmatic view of cooperation with the cognitive view of egocentrism in order to incorporate emerging features of communication. He argues that people cooperate by generating and formulating intention that is relevant to the given actual situational context. At the same time, however, because of their egocentrism they activate the most salient information to their attention in the construction and comprehension of utterances. Within this approach, interlocutors are considered as social beings searching for meaning with individual minds embedded in a socio-cultural collectivity, and intention is a cooperation-directed practice that is governed by relevance which depends on actual situational experience.Intercultural pragmatics is a rapidly-growing field, and the only subfield of pragmatics to incorporate features of intercultural interaction into mainstream pragmatics. This volume offers both a valuable synthesis of current research and a new way to think about pragmatics. (shrink)

Written in 1970 by a prominent Marxist philosopher and student of Georg Lukács, this book argues that alienation is the central idea in all of Karl Marx's work. To distinguish Marx's original concept from its use by other writers over the years, the topic is approached in three different ways. First, the origin of the idea of alienation is discussed along with an analysis of the way Marx structured it into a theory. Then alienation is explored beyond its political aspect, (...) as it has been used in economics, ontology, moral philosophy, and aesthetics. The contemporary usefulness of the term is covered in the last section of the book, which concludes that current debates about the individual in society and the role of education can be fruitfully discussed in terms of alienation. (shrink)

Mainstream metaphysics has been preoccupied by inquiring into the nature of major kinds of entities, like objects, properties and events, while avoiding minor entities, like shadows or holes. However, one might want to hope that dealing with such minor entities could be profitable for even solving puzzles about major entities. I propose a new ontological puzzle, the Shadow of Constitution Puzzle, incorporating the old puzzle of material constitution, with shadows in the role of the minor entity to guide our approach (...) to the issues involved. I then analyze the standard answers to the original puzzle of constitution, in their role as potential solutions to the new puzzle. Finally, I discuss three views that can solve the proposed puzzle. (shrink)

Starting from the theological fragment of Protagoras , the paper explores the possible connections between sceptical views and theology in antiquity. I argue that some standard topics in late antique theological discourse, such as the method of negative theology, the philosophical problem of omnipotence, and the compatibility of human autonomy with divine omniscience stem from sceptical arguments, more particularly from those of Carneades. These sections discuss in detail evidence in passages of Sextus Empiricus, Cicero and of the pseudo-Aristotelian treatise De (...) Melisso, Xenophane, Gorgia. Finally, I point out how the late antique theories of intermediaries meant to explain the problem of Evil could have profited from the application of the sorites argument to theology by Carneades. (shrink)

Rankings of politicalparties are often used to map the multiple party preference of the electorate. This article shows how the obtained rankings may be analysed by means of the exploded logit-technique, which allows for testing both the difference between the rankings and the effect of either categorical or quantitative independent variables on the rankings. An analysis of the effect of age on the party preference rankings of the christian democratie electorate in the 1991 Belgian parliamentary election shows that the older (...) CVP-voters tend to rank the liberal and the socialist party equally, white the younger voters hesitate between the liberal and the green party. The younger CVP-voters are also significantly less averse of the far-right Vlaams Blok. (shrink)

"Not only profound in its analysis, but also so passionately inspired by sympathy for the downtrodden and their struggle for liberation..." --Daniel Singer, The Nation "This is an important book, heavy in size and tone. It belongs in every serious library." --Choice --This text refers to an alternate edition.

Among others we will prove that the equational theory of ω dimensional representable polyadic equality algebras (RPEA ω 's) is not schema axiomatizable. This result is in interesting contrast with the Daigneault-Monk representation theorem, which states that the class of representable polyadic algebras is finite schema-axiomatizable (and hence the equational theory of this class is finite schema-axiomatizable, as well). We will also show that the complexity of the equational theory of RPEA ω is also extremely high in the recursion theoretic (...) sense. Finally, comparing the present negative results with the positive results of Ildiko Sain and Viktor Gyuris [12], the following methodological conclusions will be drawn: The negative properties of polyadic (equality) algebras can be removed by switching from what we call the "polyadic algebraic paradigm" to the "cylindric algebraic paradigm". (shrink)

This paper argues that current pragmatic theories fail to describe common ground in its complexity because they usually retain a communication-as-transfer-between-minds view of language, and disregard the fact that disagreement and egocentrism of speaker-hearers are as fundamental parts of communication as agreement and cooperation. On the other hand, current cognitive research has overestimated the egocentric behavior of the dyads and argued for the dynamic emergent property of common ground while devaluing the overall significance of cooperation in the process of verbal (...) communication. The paper attempts to eliminate this conflict and proposes to combine the two views into an integrated concept of common ground, in which both core common ground and emergent common ground converge to construct a dialectical socio-cultural background for communication.Both cognitive and pragmatic considerations are central to this issue. While attention explains why emergent property unfolds, intention explains why presumed shared knowledge is needed. Based on this, common ground is perceived as an effort to converge the mental representation of shared knowledge present as memory that we can activate, shared knowledge that we can seek, and rapport, as well as knowledge that we can create in the communicative process. The socio-cognitive approach emphasizes that common ground is a dynamic construct that is mutually constructed by interlocutors throughout the communicative process. The core and emergent components join in the construction of common ground in all stages, although they may contribute to the construction process in different ways, to different extents, and in different phases of the communicative process. (shrink)

This paper argues that current pragmatic theories fail to describe common ground in its complexity because they usually retain a communication-as-transfer-between-minds view of language, and disregard the fact that disagreement and egocentrism of speaker-hearers are as fundamental parts of communication as agreement and cooperation. On the other hand, current cognitive research has overestimated the egocentric behavior of the dyads and argued for the dynamic emergent property of common ground while devaluing the overall significance of cooperation in the process of verbal (...) communication. The paper attempts to eliminate this conflict and proposes to combine the two views into an integrated concept of common ground, in which both core common ground and emergent common ground converge to construct a dialectical socio-cultural background for communication.Both cognitive and pragmatic considerations are central to this issue. While attention explains why emergent property unfolds, intention explains why presumed shared knowledge is needed. Based on this, common ground is perceived as an effort to converge the mental representation of shared knowledge present as memory that we can activate, shared knowledge that we can seek, and rapport, as well as knowledge that we can create in the communicative process. The socio-cognitive approach emphasizes that common ground is a dynamic construct that is mutually constructed by interlocutors throughout the communicative process. The core and emergent components join in the construction of common ground in all stages, although they may contribute to the construction process in different ways, to different extents, and in different phases of the communicative process. (shrink)

The paper provides a brief introduction to Midgley's person and work, and an overview of The Biscuit Tin memorial event-series in honor of Midgley.

James A. Diefenbeck, Wayward Reflections on the History ofPhilosophyThomas R. Flynn Sartre, Foucault and Historical Reason. Volume 1:Toward an Existential Theory of HistoryMark Golden and Peter Toohey Inventing Ancient Culture:Historicism, Periodization and the Ancient WorldZenonas Norkus Istorika: Istorinis IvadasEverett Zimmerman The Boundaries of Fiction: History and theEighteenth‐Century British Novel.

There are several systems which provide computer support to legal decisions. Perhaps the most significant ones, besides various computerised systems for administration, are information retrieval systems that locate statutes and documents. Other research projects, however, deal with legislation and adjudication, making it possible to use information techniques in making legal decisions. I wish to describe two decision-support programs and to link them to some theoretical findings of my former researches. What connects those programs is that they give some new information (...) for decisions on the basis of previous similar legal cases; both describe cases with the help of criteria and use diverse artificial intelligence methods for different types or criteria. The first of the two programs aims to support decisions of insurance specialists by assessing the measure of the compensation for immaterial damage. The result is given by the combination of a neural network, based upon previous judicial cases, and an expert system. The neural network gives the first assessment for the sum of compensation while the expert system refines the network's output. The other program can be used by judges and lawyers in the course of preparing a decision. Studying cases of road accidents, we find that fuzzy logic methods can help to approximate decisions actually given by judges. In this way, the process of decision making by courts and lawyers receives an additional piece of information, obtained by comparing the seriousness of the actual case with that of previous cases. (shrink)

Communication is not as smooth a process as current pragmatic theories depict it. In Rapaport’s words “We almost always fail […]. Yet we almost always nearly succeed: This is the paradox of communication”. This paper claims that there is a need for an approach that is able to explain this “bumpy road” by analyzing both the positive and negative features of the communicative process. The paper presents a socio-cognitive approach to pragmatics that takes into account both the societal and individual (...) factors including cooperation and egocentrism that, as claimed here, are not antagonistic phenomena in interaction. This approach is considered an alternative to current theories of pragmatics that do not give an adequate account of what really happens in the communicative process. They consider communication an idealistic, cooperation-based, context-dependent process in which speakers are supposed to carefully construct their utterances for the hearer taking into account all contextual factors and hearers do their best to figure out the intentions of the speakers. This approach relies mainly on the positive features of communication including cooperation, rapport and politeness while almost completely ignores the untidy, trial-and-error nature of communication and the importance of prior contexts captured in the individual use of linguistic units. The overemphasis on cooperative, societal, contextual factors has led to disregard individual factors such as egocentrism and salience that are as important contributors to the communicative process as cooperation, context and rapport. The socio-cognitive approach is presented as a theoretical framework to incorporate and reconcile two seemingly antagonistic sides of the communicative process and explain the dynamic interplay of prior and actual situational contexts. (shrink)

Recenzio Kiraly V. Istvan Death and History c. konyverol.

In this paper some parallelisms and differences are presented between two ancient theological traditions concerning their model of Christ by comparing two representative figures of both schools, namely Theodoret of Cyrus and Cyril of Alexandria. Since the Christology of the two authors could not be compared in detail within such a paper, the investigation resumes itself to the mode how they interpret the Lord’s Temptation by the devil in the wilderness. The works involved in the analysis include Theodoret’s treatise On (...) the incarnation written in 431 before the Council of Ephesus, the fragments of Cyril’s Commentary on Matthew as well as his Commentary on Luke. The doctrinal conclusion of this comparison is that the two traditions represented by these illustrious theologians—despite their conspicuous and undeniable differences— signify rather complementary than flatly opposing views and that the two ancient traditions have found their revival even in the sixteenth century, and continue to influence the theologians of our time. This is why the author considers Chalcedon as being a corridor rather than a narrow path or a tightrope-walking, where only one is able to go through. (shrink)

An important question in language evolution is whether segmentation as a linguistic process is able to yield compositionality. Segmentation is hypothesized to be a process to bridge the gap between holistic and compositional lexicons. However, to date no thorough analytical method has been provided to test the feasibility of segmentation. In this paper, an analytical model is presented that can predict the probability of encountering various kinds of overlaps by observing utterance pairs, and the probability of finding confirmation in the (...) language for newly extracted segments. Language users start by using a previously evolved holistic lexicon to communicate about simple environments. They segment these holistic utterances to smaller pieces, which can be used as elements of a compositional lexicon. The model reveals that the feasibility of segmentation depends on the definition of counterexamples, i.e. those associations (pairs), which either cause ambiguous extraction of segments, or do not allow segmentation at all. On one hand if inexact overlaps are considered to be contradictory (i.e. causing confusion) to a perfect exact overlap, then the probability is so minuscule that it renders the role of segmentation marginal during language evolution. On the other hand, if such inexact counterexamples are able to be segmented unambiguously due to extra cognitive capacities, segmentation may have a much higher feasibility. Keywords: segmentation; fractionation; analysis; holistic; protolanguage; compositionality. (shrink)

An important question in language evolution is whether segmentation as a linguistic process is able to yield compositionality. Segmentation is hypothesized to be a process to bridge the gap between holistic and compositional lexicons. However, to date no thorough analytical method has been provided to test the feasibility of segmentation. In this paper, an analytical model is presented that can predict the probability of encountering various kinds of overlaps by observing utterance pairs, and the probability of finding confirmation in the (...) language for newly extracted segments. Language users start by using a previously evolved holistic lexicon to communicate about simple environments. They segment these holistic utterances to smaller pieces, which can be used as elements of a compositional lexicon. The model reveals that the feasibility of segmentation depends on the definition of counterexamples, i.e. those associations, which either cause ambiguous extraction of segments, or do not allow segmentation at all. On one hand if inexact overlaps are considered to be contradictory to a perfect exact overlap, then the probability is so minuscule that it renders the role of segmentation marginal during language evolution. On the other hand, if such inexact counterexamples are able to be segmented unambiguously due to extra cognitive capacities, segmentation may have a much higher feasibility. Keywords: segmentation; fractionation; analysis; holistic; protolanguage; compositionality. (shrink)

In this article we characterize all those sequences of cardinals of length ω1 which are cardinal sequences of some compact scattered space . This extends the similar results from [R. La Grange, Concerning the cardinal sequence of a Boolean algebra, Algebra Universalis, 7 307–313] for such sequences of countable length. For ordinals between ω1 and ω2 we can only give a sufficient condition for a sequence of that length to be a cardinal sequence of a compact scattered space. This condition (...) is, arguably, the most one can expect in ZFC. In any case, ours is a significant extension of the sufficient conditions given in [J.C. Martinez, A consistency result on thin-tall superatomic Boolean algebras, Proc. Amer. Math. Soc. 115 473–477] and [J. Bagaria, Locally generic Boolean algebras and cardinal sequences, Algebra Universalis 47 283–302]. (shrink)

SC , CA , QA and QEA stand for the classes of Pinter's substitution algebras, Tarski's cylindric algebras, Halmos' quasipolyadic algebras, and quasipolyadic equality algebras of dimension , respectively. Generalizing a result of Németi on cylindric algebras, we show that for K {SC, CA, QA, QEA} and ordinals , the class Nr K of -dimensional neat reducts of -dimensional K algebras, though closed under taking homomorphic images and products, is not closed under forming subalgebras (i.e. is not a variety) if (...) and only if > 1.From this it easily follows that for 1 , the operation of forming -neat reducts of algebras in K does not commute with forming subalgebras, a notion to be made precise. (shrink)