What is Nominalistic Mereology?

Hybrid languages are introduced in order to evaluate the strength of “minimal” mereologies with relatively strong frame definability properties. Appealing to a robust form of nominalism, I claim that one investigated language $\mathcal {H}_{\textsf {m}}$ is maximally acceptable for nominalistic mereology. In an extension $\mathcal {H}_{\textsf {gem}}$ of $\mathcal {H}_{\textsf {m}}$ , a modal analog for the classical systems of Leonard and Goodman (J Symb Log 5:45–55, 1940) and Le?niewski (1916) is introduced and shown to be complete with respect to 0-deleted Boolean algebras. We characterize the formulas of first-order logic invariant for $\mathcal {H}_{\textsf {gem}}$ -bisimulations.     

What is Classical and Non-Classical Knowledge?

Mamardašvili’s ‘classical’ paradigm of knowledge is seen to be minimally based on extrapolations from Descartes’ classical philosophy to which Mamardašvili attributes features that rather anticipate his own post-classical ontology. The latter is oriented towards the primacy of perception as a subjective process, in which the self-conscious subject constructs the world, not as illusion, but as a ‘picture’ or ‘model’ (Wittgenstein’s Bild). By examining Mamardašvili’s definition of the ‘phenomenon’ against the␣background of Husserl’s ‘reduction’, Wittgenstein’s ‘object’ and the Freudian and post-structuralist psychoanalytic model of subjectivity, the paper arrives at the inference that Mamardašvili is essentially a post-Structuralist thinker who appropriates concepts from various critical and philosophical disciplines to construct his own multi-disciplinary theory of consciousness and perception.     

What is spiritual? What is spiritual suffering?

The author offers definitions for "spiritual" and for "spiritual suffering," suggesting that human spiritual needs include Love, Faith, Hope, Virtue, and Beauty. Spiritual suffering is experienced when these needs are unfulfilled. Spiritual care involves assisting in the fulfillment of these needs. He considers the constant movement between spiritual needs and fulfillments, encouraging use of fluid (not static) assessment methods using "spiritual spectra." As a model, this outline of basic spiritual needs may serve as the foundation for many current spiritual assessment tools.     

What is analysis?

This paper attempts to discern a ground for doing depth psychological work in times of disappearance, loss and the absence of the gods. Through the poetry of Friedrich Hölderlin, and to a lesser extent, Rainer Maria Rilke, it seeks to discover the significance of fragmentation and conflagration in the manifestations of both psyche and the post-industrial landscape we inhabit. What does the ‘death of god’ mean for our notions of symbol and self and for the practice of psychotherapy and psychoanalysis? How do we understand our daily clinical work in the context of ruin, holocaust and despair?     

What is historicism?

“Historicism” has become a ubiquitous and equivocal term. A classification is given here of five separate uses of the term currently in vogue, each provided with a unique qualifying adjective to help keep them distinct. I then offer a few objections to some of the more radical conclusions which have been drawn by proponents of a specific version of historicism, one associated with “postmodernism “. The positions of Rorty and Putnam are contrasted as examples of strong and weak degrees of historicism, respectively.     

What is presentism?

Presentism has received much scrutiny of late, yet little has been said of its definition. Many assume that it means simply that all that exists, exists at present. However, this definition will not do. It is defective in a multiplicity of ways. I consider and reject each of a number of intuitive ways in which to amend it. Each carries us a bit closer to our goal, but not until the end do we reach a definition that is wholly satisfactory. The final definition has this remarkable feature: it has us posit abstracta of two kinds, namely, times and haecceities.     

What is Antiphilosophy?

In certain philosophical quarters, a new metaphilosophical position is being discussed—antiphilosophy. Such a position seems to maintain that there is no distinction between philosophy and sophistry, reason and rhetoric, arguing and emoting. This paper examines antiphilosophy. Specifically, it aims to address three interrelated questions: Is antiphilosophy a possible metaphilosophical position? If it is, what characterizes it? And what ramifications would it have? The paper argues that antiphilosophy is possible and is best construed as an attempt to reconstruct philosophical discourse on noncognitive lines. Explicitly, “to assert” and the belief propositional attitude is replaced by “to convince” and a pro‐attitude desire to rhetorically talk someone into something. The paper examines one possible form such a position could take as well as various ramifications of it.     

What is hope?

According to the standard account, to hope for an outcome is to desire it and to believe that its realization is possible, though not inevitable. This account, however, faces certain difficulties: It cannot explain how people can display differing strengths in hope; it cannot distinguish hope from despair; and it cannot explain substantial hopes. This paper proposes an account of hope that can meet these deficiencies. Briefly, it argues that in addition to possessing the relevant belief–desire structure as allowed in the standard account, a hopeful person must also be able to see a way in which the desired outcome can come about and to see such a way to the outcome as a genuine possibility.     

What is Said?

It is sometimes argued that certain sentences of natural language fail to express truth conditional contents. Standard examples include e.g. Tipper is ready and Steel is strong enough. In this paper, we provide a novel analysis of truth conditional meaning (what is said) using the notion of a question under discussion. This account (i) explains why these types of sentences are not, in fact, semantically underdetermined (yet seem truth conditionally incomplete), (ii) provides a principled analysis of the process by which natural language sentences (in general) can come to have enriched meanings in context, and (iii) shows why various alternative views, e.g. so‐called Radical Contextualism, Moderate Contextualism, and Semantic Minimalism, are partially right in their respective analyses of the problem, but also all ultimately wrong. Our analysis achieves this result using a standard truth conditional and compositional semantics and without making any assumptions about enriched logical forms, i.e. logical forms containing phonologically null expressions.     

What is Testimony?

C.A.J. Coady, in his book Testimony: A Philosophical Study (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), offers conditions on an assertion that p to count as testimony. He claims that the assertion that p must be by a competent speaker directed to an audience in need of evidence and it must be evidence that p . I offer examples to show that Coady's conditions are too strong. Testimony need not be evidence; the speaker need not be competent; and, the statement need not be relevant or directed to someone in need of evidence. I give alternative conditions. Coady was led into the stronger conditions by investigating testimony as it occurs in legal contexts, where special steps are taken to ensure that testimony provides the jury or the judge with evidence by a competent speaker that is relevant to the disputed question of the guilt or innocence of the defendant.     

What is trustworthiness?

This paper develops a novel, bifocal account of trustworthiness according to which both trustworthiness simpliciter (as in ‘Ann is trustworthy’) and trustworthiness to phi (as in ‘Ann is trustworthy when it comes to keeping your secrets’) are analysed in terms of dispositions to fulfil one's obligations. We also offer a systematic account of the relation between the two types of trustworthiness, an account of degrees of trustworthiness and comparative trustworthiness, as well as a view of permissible trustworthiness attribution.     

What is computation?

To compute is to execute an algorithm. More precisely, to say that a device or organ computes is to say that there exists a modelling relationship of a certain kind between it and a formal specification of an algorithm and supporting architecture. The key issue is to delimit the phrase of a certain kind. I call this the problem of distinguishing between standard and nonstandard models of computation. The successful drawing of this distinction guards Turing's 1936 analysis of computation against a difficulty that has persistently been raised against it, and undercuts various objections that have been made to the computational theory of mind.