What is Mereology?

2021 ◽  
pp. xvi-20
Author(s):  
A. J. Cotnoir ◽  
Achille C. Varzi
Keyword(s):  
Natural Language ◽  
Set Theory ◽  
Final Section ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Formal Ontology ◽  
Naive Set Theory ◽  
History Of ◽  
Structural Principles

This chapter provides a brief illustration of the centrality of part-whole inquiry throughout the history of philosophy, West and East. It explains two original motivations for the contemporary formal explorations of mereological systems. Husserl’s approach, stemming from Brentano, sought to treat part-whole relations as formal ontology – comprising a set of general structural principles applying to any objects whatsoever. Leśniewski’s approach was motivated by nominalism and the search for an alternative foundation for mathematics not beset by the paradoxes of naïve set theory. Some attention is paid to the different uses of ‘part’ in natural language and to whether mereology should be thought of as providing a single, overarching account. The final section details the logical machinery used throughout the book.

Insatiable: Why Everything is not Enough

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-89
Author(s):  
Charles Harvey ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Consumer Culture ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Brain Plasticity ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Religious Thought ◽  
History Of ◽  
Excessive Consumption ◽  
Human Awareness

In this essay, I argue that the deepest roots of Homo sapiens’ propensity towards excessive consumption lie in the emptiness of human awareness, itself possibly rooted in brain plasticity. I attempt to demonstrate how this insight emerged and appeared repeatedly throughout the history of philosophy and religious thought and how industrialized capitalism and consumer culture led to the current domination and envelopment of our lives by the “commodity canopy.” In the final section of the paper, I envision one way that contemporary humanity might use the history of insights about empty, restless awareness and brain plasticity to develop cultures that focus more on doing than having, more on events than on objects.

Alain Badiou and Education

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Torill Strand
Keyword(s):  
Set Theory ◽  
Academic Discipline ◽  
German Idealism ◽  
The State ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Alain Badiou ◽  
French Philosophy ◽  
Radical Innovations ◽  
Philosophical System ◽  
History Of

The French philosopher Alain Badiou (1937–) is one of the most significant philosophers of our time, well known for his meticulous work on rethinking, renewing, and thereby strengthening philosophy as an academic discipline. In short, his philosophy seeks to reveal and make sense of the potential of radical innovations in, or transformations of, any given situation. Although he has not written extensively on education, the pedagogical theme is vital, constitutive, and ongoing throughout his work. Badiou is an outspoken critic of the analytic and postmodern schools of thought, as he strongly promotes the virtue of curiosity, and prospects of “an education by truths.” “Truths” are not to be confused with matters of knowledge or opinion. Truths are existential, ongoing, and open-ended ontological operations that do not belong to any epistemic category. An education by such truths operates through a subtraction from the state of the situation and proposes a different direction regarding the true life. According to Badiou, the task of philosophy is to think these truths as processes that emerge from and pursue gradually transformations of particular situations. Overall, the structure of Badiou’s philosophical system demonstrates an extraordinary ontological style as it concurrently stands in relation to, and breaks off from, the history of contemporary French philosophy, German Idealism, and Greek antiquity. His system, which is of vast complexity, is based on mathematical set theory, consisting of a series of determinate negations of the history of philosophy, and also created by the histories of what Badiou terms philosophy’s conditions: science, art, politics, and love.

Locke on Personal Identity

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Galen Strawson ◽  
Galen Strawson
Keyword(s):  
Personal Identity ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Contemporary Philosophy ◽  
Fundamental Point ◽  
Legal Term ◽  
Word Consciousness ◽  
History Of

John Locke's theory of personal identity underlies all modern discussion of the nature of persons and selves—yet it is widely thought to be wrong. This book argues that in fact it is Locke's critics who are wrong, and that the famous objections to his theory are invalid. Indeed, far from refuting Locke, they illustrate his fundamental point. The book argues that the root error is to take Locke's use of the word “person” as merely a term for a standard persisting thing, like “human being.” In actuality, Locke uses “person” primarily as a forensic or legal term geared specifically to questions about praise and blame, punishment and reward. This point is familiar to some philosophers, but its full consequences have not been worked out, partly because of a further error about what Locke means by the word “consciousness.” When Locke claims that your personal identity is a matter of the actions that you are conscious of, he means the actions that you experience as your own in some fundamental and immediate manner. Clearly and vigorously argued, this is an important contribution both to the history of philosophy and to the contemporary philosophy of personal identity.

Same Address, Different Doors: Post-Heritage Deconstruction of the Heritage Household in Upstairs Downstairs in the 1970s and 2010s

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Abbiss
Keyword(s):  
Final Section ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Past ◽  
War Narrative ◽  
Critical History ◽  
The Social ◽  
Fourth Series ◽  
History Of ◽  
Multiple Episodes

This article offers a ‘post-heritage’ reading of both iterations of Upstairs Downstairs: the LondonWeekend Television (LWT) series (1971–5) and its shortlived BBC revival (2010–12). Identifying elements of subversion and subjectivity allows scholarship on the LWT series to be reassessed, recognising occasions where it challenges rather than supports the social structures of the depicted Edwardian past. The BBC series also incorporates the post-heritage element of self-consciousness, acknowledging the parallel between its narrative and the production’s attempts to recreate the success of its 1970s predecessor. The article’s first section assesses the critical history of the LWT series, identifying areas that are open to further study or revised readings. The second section analyses the serialised war narrative of the fourth series of LWT’s Upstairs, Downstairs (1974), revealing its exploration of female identity across multiple episodes and challenging the notion that the series became more male and upstairs dominated as it progressed. The third section considers the BBC series’ revised concept, identifying the shifts in its main characters’ positions in society that allow the series’ narrative to question the past it evokes. This will be briefly contrasted with the heritage stability of Downton Abbey (ITV, 2010–15). The final section considers the household of 165 Eaton Place’s function as a studio space, which the BBC series self-consciously adopts in order to evoke the aesthetics of prior period dramas. The article concludes by suggesting that the barriers to recreating the past established in the BBC series’ narrative also contributed to its failure to match the success of its earlier iteration.

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