Introduction: Solomon’s Difficulty

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Andrew LaZella
Keyword(s):  
General Problem ◽  
Philosophical Problem ◽  
The Other ◽  
Language And Thought ◽  
Conceptual Maps

The title derives from Scotus’s gloss of a passage from Ecclesiastes, which frames the general problem of the book. Things are difficult, Scotus tells us, because language and thought inadequately grasp the structure of reality. To remedy Solomon’s difficulty, proper division is required. As the remainder of the work shows, proper division occurs by means of a univocal concept of being and ultimate differences. The introduction establishes this general problematic with respect to the perennial philosophical problem of “cutting being at its joints.” Through the lens of Parmenides, Plato, Aristotle, and others, the introduction looks at the fit between language, thought, and reality and how divisions in one might reflect or obscure divisions in the other. For Scotus, the inadequacy of language and, to a greater extent, thought to grasp the structure of reality prompts a need for a univocal concept of being. Whereas language can gain some traction, thought stalls even more, given its acquaintance with only sensible accidents. Hence, we must engage in proper division as best as we are able. This means making conceptual maps that do not mimetically correspond to things, but rather intensionally fracture what God and angels behold in a single, unruptured, intuitive gaze.

Correlations Between Language and Logic in Indian Thought

1960 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. F. Staal
Keyword(s):  
Ordinary Language ◽  
Philosophical Problem ◽  
The Other ◽  
Symbolic Logic ◽  
Indian Logic ◽  
Language And Thought ◽  
European Languages ◽  
Indian Thought ◽  
Special Cases ◽  
Linguistic Structures

It may be possible to study special cases of the general philosophical problem, how language and thought are correlated, by considering definite thought structures and definite languages. The difficulty, that thought seems to be accessible only or at least primarily through language, can be partly avoided by concentrating upon formal expressions of thought structures which are considerably different from ordinary language. In the following an attempt will be made to show, with the help of symbolic logic, how certain general structures are expressed in classical Sanskrit and, subsequently, how certain logical structures are expressed in the technical Sanskrit of Indian logic. The results do not prove that some logical principles depend on linguistic structures; for, evidently, the linguistic structures themselves may reflect a deeper-lying structure of thinking or ‘being’. On the other hand, if it were possible to show that some expressions could occur only in languages with a special structure—e.g. some Indo-European languages—this kind of research might throw some light on the problem of the universality of logical principles.

Ontological commitment

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Jubien
Keyword(s):  
Ontological Commitment ◽  
Comparative Assessment ◽  
Philosophical Problem ◽  
The Other ◽  
General Question ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Central Figure ◽  
Occam’S Razor ◽  
The One ◽  
Occam's Razor

A person may believe in the existence of God, or numbers or ghosts. Such beliefs may be asserted, perhaps in a theory. Assertions of the existence of specific entities or kinds of entities are the intuitive source of the notion of ontological commitment, for it is natural to think of a person who makes such an assertion as being ‘committed’ to an ‘ontology’ that includes such entities. So ontological commitment appears to be a relation that holds between persons or existence assertions (including theories), on the one hand, and specific entities or kinds of entities (or ontologies), on the other. Ontological commitment is thus a very rich notion – one in which logical, metaphysical, linguistic and epistemic elements are intermingled. The main philosophical problem concerning commitment is whether there is a precise criterion for detecting commitments in accordance with intuition. It once seemed extremely important to find a criterion, for it promised to serve as a vital tool in the comparative assessment of theories. Many different criteria have been proposed and a variety of problems have beset these efforts. W.V. Quine has been the central figure in the discussion and we will consider two of his formulations below. Many important philosophical topics are closely connected with ontological commitment. These include: the nature of theories and their interpretation; interpretations of quantification; the nature of kinds; the question of the existence of merely possible entities; extensionality and intensionality; the general question of the nature of modality; and the significance of Occam’s razor.

Stall Control

1960 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Drabek
Keyword(s):  
Gas Turbine ◽  
General Problem ◽  
The Other ◽  
Jet Engine ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Stall Control

Compressor stall has had an increasing effect through the years upon gas turbine controls. The general problem was reasonably well known in the first decade of jet engine history after the “Whittle Engine”. The scheduling approach to the control of compressor stall established during this time has become rooted throughout the industry. On the other hand, an idealized approach based on sensing incipient stall remains an intriguing challenge.

Disease as a vague and thick cluster concept

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geert Keil ◽  
Ralf Stoecker
Keyword(s):  
General Problem ◽  
Philosophy Of Medicine ◽  
The Other ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Sharp Line ◽  
Cluster Concept

This chapter relates the problem of demarcating the pathological from the non-pathological in psychiatry to the general problem of defining ‘disease’ in the philosophy of medicine. Section 2 revisits three prominent debates in medical nosology: naturalism versus normativism, the three dimensions of illness, sickness, and disease, and the demarcation problem. Sections 3–5 reformulate the demarcation problem in terms of semantic vagueness. ‘Disease’ exhibits vagueness of degree by drawing no sharp line in a continuum and is combinatorially vague because there are several criteria for the term’s use that might fall apart. Combinatorial vagueness explains why the other two debates appear hopeless: Should we construe ‘disease’ in a naturalistic or in a normative way? Neither answer is satisfactory. How should we balance the three dimensions of pathology? We do not have to, because illness, sickness and disease (narrowly conceived) are non-competing criteria for the application of the cluster term ‘disease’.

Is The Second Sex Beauvoir’s Application of Sartrean Existentialism?

1998 ◽  
pp. 68-74
Author(s):  
Margaret A. Simons
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
Interpersonal Relationships ◽  
Richard Wright ◽  
Choice Point ◽  
Philosophical Problem ◽  
The Other ◽  
Self And Other ◽  
Second Sex ◽  
Élan Vital

Simone de Beauvoir's 1949 feminist masterpiece, The Second Sex, has traditionally been read as an application of Sartrean existentialism to the problem of women. Critics have claimed a Sartrean origin for Beauvoir's central theses: that under patriarchy woman is the Other, and that 'one is not born a woman, but becomes one.' An analysis of Beauvoir's recently discovered 1927 diary, written while she was a philosophy student at the Sorbonne, two years before her first meeting with Sartre, challenges this interpretation. In this diary, Beauvoir affirms her commitment to doing philosophy, defines the philosophical problem of 'the opposition of self and other,' and explores the links between love and domination. In 1927, she thus lays the foundations of both Sartre's phenomenology of interpersonal relationships and of her own thesis, in The Second Sex, that woman is the Other. Her descriptions of the experience of freedom and choice point to the influence of Bergson, specifically his concepts of 'becoming' and élan vital. Tracing Beauvoir's shift from her apolitical position of 1927 to the feminist engagement of The Second Sex points to the influence of the African-American writer, Richard Wright, whose description of the lived experience of oppression of blacks in America, and whose challenge to Marxist reductionism, provide Beauvoir with a model, an analogy, for analyzing woman's oppression.

Can You Talk Like a Lawyer and Still Think Like a Human Being? Mertz's The Language of Law School

2009 ◽  
Vol 34 (04) ◽  
pp. 983-1015 ◽  
Author(s):  
John M. Conley
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Legal Education ◽  
Law School ◽  
The Other ◽  
First Year ◽  
Language And Thought ◽  
School Classroom ◽  
New Students ◽  
School Learning ◽  
The Relationship

The last thirty years in anthropology, as well as in linguistics and in many of the other social sciences, have been characterized by a shift in theoretical focus from structure to practice. In The Language of Law School: Learning to “Think Like a Lawyer” (2007), linguistic anthropologist and law professor Elizabeth Mertz has brought this practice perspective to bear on the extraordinary linguistic and cultural venue that is the first‐year law school classroom. In revealing the linguistic realities of teaching new students to “think like a lawyer,” she raises fascinating questions about the relationship between language and thought, the subtle effects of legal education, and the nature of law itself.

Irreducible Automorphisms of Certainp-Groups

1977 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 333-348 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Ž. Djoković ◽  
J. Malzan
Keyword(s):  
Finite Field ◽  
Maximal Subgroup ◽  
Finite Groups ◽  
General Problem ◽  
The Other ◽  
Frattini Subgroup ◽  
Other Hand

The chief purpose of this paper is to find all pairs (G, θ) whereGis a finite specialp-group, andθis an automorphism ofGacting trivially on the Frattini subgroup and irreducibly on the Frattini quotient. This problem arises in the context of describing finite groups having an abelian maximal subgroup. In fact, we solve a more general problem for a wider class ofp-groups, which we callspecial F-groups,whereFis a finite field of characteristicp.We point out that ifpis odd, then anF-group has exponentp.On the other hand, every special 2-group is also a specialGF(2)-group.

The Symbolic Relationship and Christian Truth

1966 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-136
Author(s):  
Richard C. Hall
Keyword(s):  
Human Experience ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Philosophical Problem ◽  
The Other ◽  
General Statement ◽  
Biblical Scholarship ◽  
Christian Understanding ◽  
The Common ◽  
The One

The philosophical problem of the relation of symbol to truth is far from solved, but there have been significant advances toward its solution. It is the common Christian understanding that God is Truth (among other things), and that all truths must ultimately find union in him. This is to say that all genuine truths must be compatible. The true conclusions of genuine science must be compatible with the true conclusions of genuine theology. Or, to bring this general statement to a more particular level, the true conclusions of Biblical scholarship must be compatible with the true conclusions of the natural sciences. When this compatibility is lacking, and it so often is, we must assume that the conclusions of one field of truth-seeking or the other do not partake of the Truth which is God. And there is no guarantee that theology as a field of truth-seeking cannot err. Another characteristic of genuine truth is that it is not dependent upon any particular environment or milieu—either social, cultural, philosophical, or even theological. Unless we are to make the common but dangerous division of sacred and secular, of holy and profane, claim that these areas of human experience have nothing to do the one with the other, compartmentalise our thought, and ask, ‘What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?’, it must be concluded that there is no one specifically Christian milieu. Genuine truths must be true at all times, in all places, and for all men. But since we are not gods, we must hold these truths in what St Paul called earthen vessels (II Cor. 4:7), vessels shaped and moulded by our particular milieu.

Notes and records of the Royal Society of London

1946 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 133-145
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
General Problem ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Agricultural Science ◽  
The Other ◽  
Standing Committee ◽  
The Past ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Fundamental Science ◽  
Made In

A Conference of Fellows was held in the rooms of the Royal Society on 10 May 1945 to discuss certain questions arising from the Report on the Needs of Research in Fundamental Science, particularly in relation to ‘ rare subjects ’ in the universities. As a result of this meeting, a memorandum was drawn up by Professor A. V. Hill, then Biological Secretary. This memorandum, slightly abridged, was in the following terms: Under existing conditions there are various subjects of study for which little or no provision is made in any of the universities of the United Kingdom. There are sub/branches of subjects the study of which might be held to fall within the duties of some existing depart' ment but which, in fact, have been almost neglected. O n the other hand, there are subjects for which too widespread provision has been made in the past or for which too great a dispersion of effort has proved unhealthy. Certain subjects do not need to be studied at a higher level in more than a few places. A t Sir Charles Darwin’s suggestion to the Secretaries, a Conference was called at the Royal Society on 10 May to consider the general problem. Seventeen Fellows were present. A t this Conference it was decided to ask the Council of the Royal Society to invite the co-operation of the Sectional Committees, and of the newly formed Standing Committee on Agricultural Science, to explore it further.

scholarly journals IX. Combinatorial analysis. The foundations of a new theory

1900 ◽  
Vol 194 (252-261) ◽  
pp. 361-386 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
General Problem ◽  
Complete Solution ◽  
Latin Square ◽  
The Other ◽  
Combinatorial Analysis ◽  
Great Problem ◽  
Cambridge Philosophical Society ◽  
New Instrument ◽  
Similar Character ◽  
The One

In the ‘Transactions of the Cambridge Philosophical Society’ (vol. 16, Part IV., p. 262), I brought forward a new instrument of research in Combinatorial Analysis, and applied it to the complete solution of the great problem of the “Latin Square,” which had proved a stumbling block to mathematicians since the time of Euler. The method was equally successful in dealing with a general problem of which the Latin Square was but a particular case, and also with many other questions of a similar character. I propose now to submit the method to a close examination, to attempt to establish it firmly, and to ascertain the nature of the questions to which it may be successfully applied. We shall find that it is not merely an enumerating instrument but a powerful reciprocating instrument, from which a host of theorems of algebraical reciprocity can be obtained with facility. We will suppose that combinations defined by certain laws of combination have to be enumerated; the method consists in designing, on the one hand, an operation and, on the other hand, a function in such manner that when the operation is performed upon the function a number results which enumerates the combinations. If this can be carried out we, in general, obtain far more than a single enumeration; we arrive at the point of actually representing graphically all the combinations under enumeration, and solve by the way many other problems which may be regarded as leading up to the problem under consideration. In the case of the Latin Square it was necessary to design the operation and the function the combination of which was competent to yield the solution of the problem. It is a much easier process, and from my present standpoint more scientific, to start by designing the operation and the function, and then to ascertain the questions which the combination is able to deal with.

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