Bücher der Reihe Synthese Library

The chapters cover: 1) philosophy of computing, 2) philosophy of computer science & discovery, 3) philosophy of cognition & intelligence, 4) computing & society, and 5) ethics of computation.

This book gives an account of work that I have done over a period of decades that sets out to solve two fundamental problems of philosophy: the mind-body problem and the problem of induction. Remarkably, these revolutionary contributions to philosophy turn out to have dramatic implications for a wide range of issues outside philosophy itself, most notably for the capacity of humanity to resolve current grave global problems and make progress towards a better, wiser world. A key element of the proposed solution to the first problem is that physics is about only a highly specialized aspect of all that there is - the causally efficacious aspect. Once this is understood, it ceases to be a mystery that natural science says nothing about the experiential aspect of reality, the colours we perceive, the inner experiences we are aware of. That natural science is silent about the experiential aspect of reality is no reason whatsoever to hold that the experiential does not objectively exist.A key element of the proposed solution to the second problem is that physics, in persistently accepting unified theories only, thereby makes a substantial metaphysical assumption about the universe: it is such that a unified pattern of physical law runs through all phenomena. We need a new conception, and kind, of physics that acknowledges, and actively seeks to improve, metaphysical presuppositions inherent in the methods of physics. The problematic aims and methods of physics need to be improved as physics proceeds.These are the ideas that have fruitful implications, I set out to show, for a wide range of issues: for philosophy itself, for physics, for natural science more generally, for the social sciences, for education, for the academic enterprise as a whole and, most important of all, for the capacity of humanity to learn how to solve the grave global problems that menace our future, and thus make progress to a better, wiser world. It is not just science that has problematic aims; in life too our aims, whether personal, social or institutional, are all too often profoundly problematic, and in urgent need of improvement. We need a new kind of academic enterprise which helps humanity put aims-and-methods improving meta-methods into practice in personal and social life, so that we may come to do better at achieving what is of value in life, and make progress towards a saner, wiser world.This body of work of mine has met with critical acclaim. Despite that, astonishingly, it has been ignored by mainstream philosophy. In the book I discuss the recent work of over 100 philosophers on the mind-body problem and the metaphysics of science, and show that my earlier, highly relevant work on these issues is universally ignored, the quality of subsequent work suffering as a result.My hope, in publishing this book, is that my fellow philosophers will come to appreciate the intellectual value of my proposed solutions to the mind-body problem and the problem of induction, and will, as a result, join with me in attempting to convince our fellow academics that we need to bring about an intellectual/institutional revolution in academic inquiry so that it takes up its proper task of helping humanity learn how to solve problems of living, including global problems, and make progress towards as good, as wise and enlightened a world as possible.

In a fragment entitled Elementa Nova Matheseos Universalis (1683?) Leibniz writes ¿the mathesis [¿] shall deliver the method through which things that are conceivable can be exactly determined¿; in another fragment he takes the mathesis to be ¿the science of all things that are conceivable.¿ Leibniz considers all mathematical disciplines as branches of the mathesis and conceives the mathesis as a general science of forms applicable not only to magnitudes but to every object that exists in our imagination, i.e. that is possible at least in principle. As a general science of forms the mathesis investigates possible relations between ¿arbitrary objects¿ (¿objets quelconques¿). It is an abstract theory of combinations and relations among objects whatsoever.In 1810 the mathematician and philosopher Bernard Bolzano published a booklet entitled Contributions to a Better-Grounded Presentation of Mathematics. There is, according to him, a certain objective connection among the truths that are germane to a certain homogeneous field of objects: some truths are the ¿reasons¿ (¿Gründe¿) of others, and the latter are ¿consequences¿ (¿Folgen¿) of the former. The reason-consequence relation seems to be the counterpart of causality at the level of a relation between true propositions. Arigorous proof is characterized in this context as a proof that shows the reason of the proposition that is to be proven. Requirements imposed on rigorous proofs seem to anticipate normalization results in current proof theory.The contributors of Mathesis Universalis, Computability and Proof, leading experts in the fields of computer science, mathematics, logic and philosophy, show the evolution of these and related ideas exploring topics in proof theory, computability theory, intuitionistic logic, constructivism and reverse mathematics, delving deeply into a contextual examination of the relationship between mathematical rigor and demands for simplification.

It explores the work and legacy of this prominent philosopher, who has had and continues to have a tremendous influence in the development of epistemology. The essays reflect the breadth and depth of Klein's work.

This book presents a new approach to semantics based on Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz's Directival Theory of Meaning (DTM), which in effect reduces semantics of the analysed language to the combination of its syntax and pragmatics.

They look at how consciousness can help us with quantum mechanics as well as how quantum mechanics can contribute to our understanding of consciousness.

Chapters analyse the abstract model theory of institutions as a way of representing the structure of scientific theories, the semi-automatic generation of cognitive science theories, and computational process models in the social sciences.The volume offers a unique perspective on scientific discovery in the social sciences.

This second volume continues Richard Routley's explorations of an improved Meinongian account of non-referring and intensional discourse (including joint work with Val Routley, later Val Plumwood).

This edited volume collects essays on the four-valued logic known as Belnap-Dunn logic, or first-degree entailment logic (FDE).

This volume offers a wide range of both reconstructions of Nikolai Vasiliev's original logical ideas and their implementations in the modern logic and philosophy.

Essays on Husserl's Logic and Philosophy of Mathematics sets out to fill up a lacuna in the present research on Husserl by presenting a precise account of Husserl's work in the field of logic, of the philosophy of logic and of the philosophy of mathematics.

This collection highlights the new trend away from rationalism and toward empiricism in the epistemology of modality. Early chapters focus on challenges to rationalist theories, essence-based approaches to modal knowledge, and the prospects for naturalizing modal epistemology.

This monograph details a new solution to an old problem of metaphysics. These include: the problem of predication, the problem of abstract reference, and the One Over Many as well as the Many Over One and the Similar but Different variants. This book will appeal to anyone interested in contemporary metaphysics.

Hanson brought Wittgensteinian ordinary language philosophy to bear on the concepts of science, and his treatments of observation, discovery, and the theory-ladenness of scientific facts remain central to the philosophy of science.

This monograph is a detailed study, and systematic defence, of the Growing Block Theory of time (GBT), first conceived by C.D. Broad. The book offers a coherent, logically perspicuous and ideologically lean formulation of GBT, defends it against the most notorious objections to be found in the extant philosophical literature, and shows how it can be derived from a more general theory, consistent with relativistic spacetime, on the pre-relativistic assumption of an absolute and total temporal order.The authors devise axiomatizations of GBT and its competitors which, against the backdrop of a shared quantified tense logic, significantly improves the prospects of their comparative assessment. Importantly, neither of these axiomatizations involves commitment to properties of presentness, pastness or futurity. The authors proceed to address, and defuse, a number of objections that have been marshaled against GBT, including the so-called epistemic objection according to which the theory invites skepticism about our temporal location. The challenge posed by relativistic physics is met head-on, by replacing claims about temporal variation by claims about variation across spacetime.The book aims to achieve the greatest possible rigor. The background logic is set out in detail, as are the principles governing the notions of precedence and temporal location. The authors likewise devise a novel spacetime logic suited for the articulation, and comparative assessment, of relativistic theories of time. The book comes with three technical appendices which include soundness and completeness proofs for the systems corresponding to GBT and its competitors, in both their pre-relativistic and relativistic forms. The book is primarily directed at researchers and graduate students working on the philosophy of time or temporal logic, but is of interest to metaphysicians and philosophical logicians more generally.

This open access book ¿ as the title suggests ¿ explores some of the historical roots and epistemological ramifications of perspectivism. Perspectivism has recently emerged in philosophy of science as an interesting new position in the debate between scientific realism and anti-realism. But there is a lot more to perspectivism than discussions in philosophy of science so far have suggested. Perspectivism is a much broader view that emphasizes how our knowledge (in particular our scientific knowledge of nature) is situated; it is always from a human vantage point (as opposed to some Nagelian "view from nowhere"). This edited collection brings together a diverse team of established and early career scholars across a variety of fields (from the history of philosophy to epistemology and philosophy of science). The resulting nine essays trace some of the seminal ideas of perspectivism back to Kant, Nietzsche, the American Pragmatists, and Putnam, while the second part of the book tackles issues concerning the relation between perspectivism, relativism, and standpoint theories, and the implications of perspectivism for epistemological debates about veritism, epistemic normativity and the foundations of human knowledge.

This volume examines the question ¿Do abstract objects exist?¿, presenting new work from contributing authors across different branches of philosophy. The introduction overviews philosophical debate which considers: what objects qualify as abstract, what do we mean by the word "exist¿ and indeed, what evidence should count in favor or against the thesis that abstract objects exist. Through subsequent chapters readers will discover the ubiquity of abstract objects as each philosophical field is considered.Given the ubiquitous use of expressions that purportedly refer to abstract objects, we think that it is relevant to attend to the controversy between those who want to advocate the existence of abstract objects and those who stand against them. Contributions to this volume depict positions and debates that directly or indirectly involve taking one position or other about abstract objects of different kinds and categories. The volume provides a variety of samples of how positions for or against abstract objects can be used in different areas of philosophy in relation to different matters.

This open access book ΓÇô as the title suggests ΓÇô explores some of the historical roots and epistemological ramifications of perspectivism. Perspectivism has recently emerged in philosophy of science as an interesting new position in the debate between scientific realism and anti-realism. But there is a lot more to perspectivism than discussions in philosophy of science so far have suggested. Perspectivism is a much broader view that emphasizes how our knowledge (in particular our scientific knowledge of nature) is situated; it is always from a human vantage point (as opposed to some Nagelian "view from nowhere"). This edited collection brings together a diverse team of established and early career scholars across a variety of fields (from the history of philosophy to epistemology and philosophy of science). The resulting nine essays trace some of the seminal ideas of perspectivism back to Kant, Nietzsche, the American Pragmatists, and Putnam, while the second part of the book tackles issues concerning the relation between perspectivism, relativism, and standpoint theories, and the implications of perspectivism for epistemological debates about veritism, epistemic normativity and the foundations of human knowledge.

In this monograph, different formal logics for sortal concepts and sortal-related logical notions (such as sortal identity and first-order sortal quantification) are characterized. Another feature of the logics in question concerns second-order quantification over sortal concepts, a logical notion that is also represented in the logics.

They look at how consciousness can help us with quantum mechanics as well as how quantum mechanics can contribute to our understanding of consciousness.

In a fragment entitled Elementa Nova Matheseos Universalis (1683?) Leibniz writes ¿the mathesis [¿] shall deliver the method through which things that are conceivable can be exactly determined¿; in another fragment he takes the mathesis to be ¿the science of all things that are conceivable.¿ Leibniz considers all mathematical disciplines as branches of the mathesis and conceives the mathesis as a general science of forms applicable not only to magnitudes but to every object that exists in our imagination, i.e. that is possible at least in principle. As a general science of forms the mathesis investigates possible relations between ¿arbitrary objects¿ (¿objets quelconques¿). It is an abstract theory of combinations and relations among objects whatsoever.In 1810 the mathematician and philosopher Bernard Bolzano published a booklet entitled Contributions to a Better-Grounded Presentation of Mathematics. There is, according to him, a certain objective connection among the truths that are germane to a certain homogeneous field of objects: some truths are the ¿reasons¿ (¿Gründe¿) of others, and the latter are ¿consequences¿ (¿Folgen¿) of the former. The reason-consequence relation seems to be the counterpart of causality at the level of a relation between true propositions. Arigorous proof is characterized in this context as a proof that shows the reason of the proposition that is to be proven. Requirements imposed on rigorous proofs seem to anticipate normalization results in current proof theory.The contributors of Mathesis Universalis, Computability and Proof, leading experts in the fields of computer science, mathematics, logic and philosophy, show the evolution of these and related ideas exploring topics in proof theory, computability theory, intuitionisticlogic, constructivism and reverse mathematics, delving deeply into a contextual examination of the relationship between mathematical rigor and demands for simplification.

This edited work presents contemporary mathematical practice in the foundational mathematical theories, in particular set theory and the univalent foundations.

Chapters analyse the abstract model theory of institutions as a way of representing the structure of scientific theories, the semi-automatic generation of cognitive science theories, and computational process models in the social sciences.The volume offers a unique perspective on scientific discovery in the social sciences.

According to dispositional realism, or dispositionalism, the entities inhabiting our world possess irreducibly dispositional properties - often called 'powers' - by means of which they are sources of change.

This book highlights the existence of a diversity of methods in science, in general, in groups of sciences (natural, social or the artificial), and in individual sciences.

This book presents a new nominalistic philosophy of mathematics: semantic conventionalism. Its central thesis is that mathematics should be founded on the human ability to create language ¿ and specifically, the ability to institute conventions for the truth conditions of sentences.This philosophical stance leads to an alternative way of practicing mathematics: instead of ¿building¿ objects out of sets, a mathematician should introduce new syntactical sentence types, together with their truth conditions, as he or she develops a theory.Semantic conventionalism is justified first through criticism of Cantorian set theory, intuitionism, logicism, and predicativism; then on its own terms; and finally, exemplified by a detailed reconstruction of arithmetic and real analysis.Also included is a simple solution to the liar paradox and the other paradoxes that have traditionally been recognized as semantic. And since it is argued that mathematics is semantics, this solution also applies to Russell¿s paradox and the other mathematical paradoxes of self-reference.In addition to philosophers who care about the metaphysics and epistemology of mathematics or the paradoxes of self-reference, this book should appeal to mathematicians interested in alternative approaches.