scholarly journals How does God know that 2 + 2 = 4?

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
ANDREW BRENNER
Keyword(s):  
General Model ◽  
States Of Affairs ◽  
Truth Values ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Free Actions ◽  
In Virtue Of

AbstractSometimes theists wonder how God's beliefs track particular portions of reality, e.g. contingent states of affairs, or facts regarding future free actions. In this article I sketch a general model for how God's beliefs track reality. God's beliefs track reality in much the same way that propositions track reality, namely via grounding. Just as the truth values of true propositions are generally or always grounded in their truthmakers, so too God's true beliefs are grounded in the subject matters of those beliefs (i.e. God believes that p in virtue of the fact that p). This is not idle speculation, since my proposal allows the theist to account for God's true beliefs regarding causally inert portions of reality.

scholarly journals Negating as turning upside down

2018 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-129 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bartłomiej Skowron ◽  
Wiesław Kubiś
Keyword(s):  
Category Theory ◽  
Contravariant Functor ◽  
States Of Affairs ◽  
Truth Values ◽  
Paper Making ◽  
The Third ◽  
Entire Structure ◽  
Ontological Problem

Abstract In order to understand negation as such, at least since Aristotle’s time, there have been many ways of conceptually modelling it. In particular, negation has been studied as inconsistency, contradictoriness, falsity, cancellation, an inversion of arrangements of truth values, etc. In this paper, making substantial use of category theory, we present three more conceptual and abstract models of negation. All of them capture negation as turning upside down the entire structure under consideration. The first proposal turns upside down the structure almost literally; it is the well known construction of opposite category. The second one treats negation as a contravariant functor and the third one captures negation as adjointness. Traditionally, negation was investigated in the context of language as negation of sentences or parts of sentences, e.g. names. On the contrary we propose to negate structures globally. As a consequence of our approach we provide a solution to the ontological problem of the existence of negative states of affairs.

Internal Relations and Analyticity: Wittgenstein and Quine

1996 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 591-612 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Hymers
Keyword(s):  
Plausible Candidate ◽  
Analytic Truth ◽  
Internal Relations ◽  
The Subject ◽  
In Virtue Of

Since Russell and Moore forsook idealism, it has often been assumed that only analytic truths can express internal relations — relations which, in Russell's words, are ‘grounded in the natures of the related terms.’ An object, a, is internally related to another object, b, if and only if a is related to b in virtue of a's possessing some property, P. So if a has the property of being a branch, then it is internally related to some tree, b, as part to whole. In turn, ‘A branch is a part of some tree’ is (at least a plausible candidate for) an analytic truth. It is true in virtue of the meanings of its terms, or because the concept of the predicate contains the concept of the subject.Quine's critique of analyticity has thus made the pragmatically minded wary of talk of internal relations.

The Metaphysics of Memory

Memory ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 32-56
Author(s):  
Jordi Fernández
Keyword(s):  
Mental State ◽  
Perceptual Experience ◽  
Functional Role ◽  
Narrative Theory ◽  
Causal Theory ◽  
Cognitive Economy ◽  
Proposal A ◽  
The Subject ◽  
In Virtue Of

Chapter 2 offers a proposal about the facts in virtue of which a mental state qualifies as a memory. According to this proposal, a mental state qualifies as a memory in virtue of the functional role that it plays within the cognitive economy of the subject. The chapter outlines two alternative proposals about the nature of memory. According to the causal theory of memory, a mental state is a memory in virtue of the fact that it has been caused by a perceptual experience of some fact. According to the narrative theory of memory, a mental state is a memory in virtue of the fact that the subject is using the mental state to construct a story of their life. It is argued that the functionalist proposal enjoys the virtues of each of the two theories, and it avoids the difficulties which threaten the two theories as well.

scholarly journals The puzzle of transparency and how to solve it

2019 ◽  
Vol 49 (7) ◽  
pp. 916-935
Author(s):  
Wolfgang Barz
Keyword(s):  
Two Stage ◽  
Stage Process ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
In Virtue Of

AbstractAccording to the transparency approach, achievement of self-knowledge is a two-stage process: first, the subject arrives at the judgment ‘p’; second, the subject proceeds to the judgment ‘I believe thatp.’ The puzzle of transparency is to understand why the transition from the first to the second judgment is rationally permissible. After revisiting the debate between Byrne and Boyle on this matter, I present a novel solution according to which the transition is rationally permissible in virtue of a justifying argument that begins from a premise referring to the mental utterance that is emitted in the course of judging ‘p.’

The Nature of Ususfructus

1946 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 159-170
Author(s):  
Kopel Kagan
Keyword(s):  
Great Difficulty ◽  
Roman Law ◽  
Present Position ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The One ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Right ◽  
Opening Statements ◽  
In Virtue Of

No satisfactory definition of Dominium in Roman Law has yet been achieved. Amongst English writers Austin many years ago found great difficulty in this question while in modern times Professor Buckland has written ‘it is thus difficult to define Dominium precisely.’ Again, Poste, dealing with Gaius' discussion of dominium, says that his opening statements are ‘deplorably confused.’ These examples are enough to indicate the condition, of uncertainty which prevails. In my submission this uncertainty exists mainly because the conception of ususfructus has never yet been explained adequately. Of Possessio it has been said ‘the definition of Possessio to give the results outlined is a matter of great difficulty. No perfectly correct solution may be possible,’ and this statement is generally accepted as a correct assessment of the present position in juristic literature. But here, too, in my opinion, the reason is again connected with usufruct, for the possessio of the usufructuary has not yet been adequately determined. Gaius (2.93) tells us ‘usufructuarius vero usucapere non potest; primuum quod non possidet, sed habet ius utendi et fruendi.’ Ulpian holds that he had possessio in fact (‘Naturaliter videtur possidere is qui usum fructum habet’ D.41.2.12). On this subject Roby says ‘the fructuary was not strictly a possessor and therefore if he was deprived from enjoying he had not a claim to the original interdict de vi but in virtue of his quasi-possessio a special interdict was granted him.’ Austin saw difficulty in the whole problem of possessio. He wrote ‘by Savigny in his treatise on possessio it is remarked that the possessio of a right of usufruct … resembles the possessio of a thing, by the proprietor, or by an adverse possessor exercising rights of property over the thing. And that a disturbance of the one possession resembles the disturbance of the other. Now this must happen for the reason I have already stated:—namely, that the right of usufruct or user, like that of property, is indefinite in point of user. For what is possession (meaning legal possession not mere physical handling of the subject) but the exercise of a right ?’

Dretske on Naturalizing Experience

Dialogue ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 561-566
Author(s):  
Irene Sonia Switankowsky
Keyword(s):  
Mental Content ◽  
External World ◽  
Perceptual Content ◽  
States Of Affairs ◽  
Conceptual Content ◽  
Content Externalism ◽  
Secondary Qualities ◽  
Physical Conditions ◽  
The Subject

Many theorists in epistemology and mind accept externalism with respect to content–namely, the claim that the conditions that individuate mental content are external to the occurrence of that content as a mental fact. Whatever it is that distinguishes a pain in the knee from a pain in the toe—or, alternatively, whatever it is that makes it possible for the subject to discriminate this pain as a pain in the knee from that pain as a pain in the toe—are factors and conditions located in the physical and external world. This much externalism seems to be required even if one is a thoroughly entrenched mentalist. This “content externalism” is captured, fairly effectively, by the more traditional distinction between concepts and percepts. What is then asserted by the mentalist is that concepts have their source or origin in the external world, but the perceptual content does not. Perceptual content can be identified in different ways which are: (1) the view that identifies the distinguishing feature of the perceptual with qualia, a position not far removed from the Lockean distinction between Primary and Secondary qualities; or, (2) the perceptual might also be characterized in terms of representationalism, where qualia are an essential part of the representational medium, but where the representational medium contains conceptual content as well. In either case, the perceptual is Type and/or Token distinct from whatever is the external physical conditions or states of affairs causally responsible for the occurrence of either the conceptual content or the perceptual content. An argument for the claim that percepts (colours, sounds, smells, touches, and so on) are essential and necessary is that, without such percepts, there can be no experience.

scholarly journals Microstructure of Thermoplastic Composites Reinforced with Wool and Wood

2019 ◽  
Vol 890 ◽  
pp. 98-112
Author(s):  
Catarina Baptista ◽  
Gabriela Martins ◽  
Cyril Santos ◽  
Artur Mateus ◽  
Filipe Antunes
Keyword(s):  
Textile Industry ◽  
Thermoplastic Composites ◽  
Animal Origin ◽  
Melt Blending ◽  
Sustainable Solutions ◽  
Chemical Treatments ◽  
Combined Use ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Cellulosic Fibres ◽  
In Virtue Of

In the last decades the studies on thermoplastic composites reinforced with natural fibres have been mostly focused on vegetable lignocellulosic or cellulosic fibres. These materials provide eco-sustainable solutions for a large range of applications and have been actually adopted by multiple industries. The interest on fibres of animal origin is more recent and research on composites reinforced with these fibres predominantly composed of keratin, such as wool, feathers or silk, is increasing in virtue of some advantageous properties that may overcome some of the intrinsic limitations from vegetable fibres. The combined use of vegetable and animal fibres in composites appropriate for melt blending processing is at early stages of research. After chemical treatments, the fibres of animal origin have been mostly applied as binders between vegetable fibres and polymers, not as main constituents of these composites. The use of both types of fibres simultaneously in composites of thermoplastic matrices is the subject of the present study wherein the fibres of animal origin (wool) are different kinds of residues from a textile industry and the fibres of vegetable origin (wood) are residues from carpentry activities. The chemical composition, the macro and microstructure of the fibres is analyzed, as well as that of composites that combine non-biodegradable and biodegradable polymers with diverse ratios of fibres in different conditions (wool as cards, yarns and felt cloths; wood as sawdust). The addition of coupling agents to enhance the compatibility between wool, wood and different polymers is also analysed.

Obligating Reasons, Moral Laws, and Moral Dispositions

2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luke Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Moral Obligations ◽  
States Of Affairs ◽  
In Virtue Of

Moral obligations rest on circumstances (events, states of affairs, etc.). But what are these obligating reasons and in virtue of what are they such reasons? Nomological conceptions define such reasons in terms of moral laws. I argue that one such conception cannot be correct and that others do not support the familiar and plausible view that obligating reasons are pro tanto (or contributory) reasons, either because they entail that this view is false or else because they cannot explain – or even help to explain – how it could be true. I also argue that a particular dispositional conception of obligating reasons does support this view of obligating reasons by enabling an explanation of how it could be true. Moreover, my arguments show that the dispositional moral metaphysic on which this conception is predicated can do something that nomological alternatives cannot: explain why obligating reasons and moral obligations are pro tanto reasons and obligations.

Life, Movement, and Desire

2008 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Renaud Barbaras
Keyword(s):  
Final Analysis ◽  
Vital Activity ◽  
Hans Jonas ◽  
The World ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Satisfaction Of Needs ◽  
In Virtue Of ◽  
Living Being ◽  
Life Movement

AbstractIn French, the verb "to live" designates both being alive and the experience of something. This ambiguity has a philosophical meaning. The task of a phenomenology of life is to describe an originary sense of living from which the very distinction between life in the intransitive sense and life in the transitive, or intentional, sense proceeds. Hans Jonas is one of those rare authors who has tried to give an account of the specificity of life instead of reducing life to categories that are foreign to it. However, the concept of metabolism, by which Jonas characterizes vital activity, attests to a presupposition as to life: life is conceived as self-preservation, that is, as negation of death, in such a way that life is, in the end, not thought on the basis of itself. The aim of this article is to show that life as such must be understood as movement in a radicalized sense, in which the living being is no more the subject than the product. All living beings are in effect characterized by a movement, which nothing can cause to cease, a movement that largely exceeds what is required by the satisfaction of needs and that, because of this, bears witness to an essential incompleteness. This incompleteness reveals that life is originarily bound to a world. Because the world to which the living being relates is essentially non-totalizable and unpresentable, living movement can not essentially complete itself. Thus, in the final analysis, life must be defined as desire, and in virtue of this view, life does not tend toward self-preservation, as we have almost always thought, but toward the manifestation of the world.

scholarly journals XIII.—On the Place and Power of Accent in Language

1871 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 269-312
Author(s):  
Blackie
Keyword(s):  
Large Volume ◽  
Small Volume ◽  
Common Language ◽  
Human Speech ◽  
Accurate Definition ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
In Virtue Of

On the subject of accent and quantity as elements of human speech, there has been such an immense amount of confusion, arising from vague phraseology, that in renewing the discussion nothing seems more necessary than to start with a careful and accurate definition of terms; and that a definition not taken from books, and the dumb bearers of a dead tradition, but from the living facts of nature, and the permanent qualities belonging to articulated breath. Now, if we observe accurately the natural and necessary affections of words in human discourse, considered merely as a succession of compact little wholes of articulated breath, without regard to their signification, we shall find that all the affections of which they are capable amount to four. Either (1), the mass of articulated breath which we call a word, is sent forth in a comparatively small volume, as in the case of a common gun, or it is sent forth in large volume, as in the case of a Lancaster gun; this is a mere affair of bulk, in virtue of which alone it is manifest that any word rolled forth from the lungs of a Stentor must be a different thing from the same mass of sound emitted from a less capacious bellows. In common language this difference is marked by the words loud and low.

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