Ein Argumentationsspiel um das Münchhausen-Trilemma

By means of a strategic game the present paper tries to answer the question of whether the so-called trilemma of Münchhausen (H. Albert)as it stands is able to perform the twofold task of both refuting the methodology of foundationalismand of getting us thereby nearer to the methodology of critical rationalism.The formal reconstruction of the argument provides us with four possible versions which however can only be called trilemmas in a wider sense of this term. Moreover, a test shows three of them to be invalid. The subsequent discussion of the only valid one makes clear that in order to save the truth of its premisses as far as possible the latter have to be modified in a way that brings us still farther away from the original trilemma of Münchhausen. But even then it may be doubted whether the remains of the argument can fulfil the above-mentioned twofold task.     

Positive modal logic

We give a set of postulates for the minimal normal modal logicK ₊ without negation or any kind of implication. The connectives are simply , , , . The postulates (and theorems) are all deducibility statements . The only postulates that might not be obvious are

Indeterminiertheit,Iterabilität und Intentionalität

In his recent paper Indeterminacy, empiricism, and the first person John R. Searle tries to refute Willard V. O. Quine's famous indeterminacy of translation thesis by arguing that this thesis is in fact areductio ad absurdum of Quine's own linguistic behaviorism. Searle accuses Quine of being (irrationally) antimentalistic and suggests that the absurdity of Quine's thesis might be avoided if a full-fledged intentionality were tolerated in the debate on meaning. — This anti-Quinean approach in some respects reminds of the improbable debate between Searle and Jacques Derrida ten years ago, when Derrida had split and deferred intentionality by showing that the essential iterability of signs inevitably infects every intentional act with an unremovable non-presence.In this paper it is argued that Searle's attacks on Quine and Derrida have both failed — and that there are structural similarities between these two failures which reveal some interesting parallels between Quine's and Derrida's philosophy.     

Kripke completeness of some intermediate predicate logics with the axiom of constant domain and a variant of canonical formulas

For each intermediate propositional logicJ, J _* denotes the least predicate extension ofJ. By the method of canonical models, the strongly Kripke completeness ofJ _*+D(=x(p(x)q)xp(x)q) is shown in some cases including:

Surrender-and-catch and phenomenology

Revision of a lecture given on November 10, 1982, in the course of a faculty seminar at Memorial University of Newfoundland. The present version owes much to the participants in the rational, undistorted discussion which followed, as well as to written comments by Erazim Kohák, his book, Idea and Experience: Edmund Husserl's Project of Phenomenology in IDEAS I (1978), discussions with Mildred Bakan, Helmut R. Wagner's response to a related paper, and a critical reading by George Psathas. I am deeply grateful.     

Between Science and Nature: Interpreting Lactation Failure in Elizabeth von Arnim's The Pastor's Wife

Interpreting a scene of lactation failure allows us to represent breast-feeding as a contested social practice. This essay reads a novelistic scene of lactation failure in the context of the decline of breast-feeding in the twentieth century. The protagonist's ignorance of the female experiences of pregnancy, childbirth, and lactation is an effect of her objectification within the opposition between science and nature. Unnatural as a woman because she is a natural individual, the pastor's wife exemplifies the dilemmas of breast-feeding as a biosocial practice of maternity in a technological society which features the breakdown of traditional female networks in which knowledge about maternity and breast-feeding are circulated.     

On a certain class ofm-address machines

Conclusion It follows from the proved theorems that ifM =Q, (whereQ={0,q ₁,q ₂,...,q }) is a machine of the classM _F then there exist machinesM _i such thatM _i(1,c)=M (q _i,c) andQ _i={0, 1, 2, ..., +1} (i=1, 2, ..., ).And thus, if the way in which to an initial function of content of memorycC a machine assigns a final onecC is regarded as the only essential property of the machine then we can deal with the machines of the formM ={0, 1, 2, ..., }, and processes (t) (wheret=1,c,cC) only.Such approach can simplify the problem of defining particular machines of the classM _F , composing and simplifying them.Allatum est die 19 Januarii 1970     

Converse Ackermann Croperty and semiclassical negation

A prepositional logic S has the Converse Ackermann Property (CAP) if (AB)C is unprovable in S when C does not contain . In A Routley-Meyer semantics for Converse Ackermann Property (Journal of Philosophical Logic, 16 (1987), pp. 65–76) I showed how to derive positive logical systems with the CAP. There I conjectured that each of these positive systems were compatible with a so-called semiclassical negation. In the present paper I prove that this conjecture was right. Relational Routley-Meyer type semantics are provided for each one of the resulting systems (the positive systems plus the semiclassical negation).     

The psychophysical nature of humans

Postpowanie czlowieka [Human activity] in [Ajdukiewicz 1985], vol. 1, 317–324.     

Language in action

A number of general points behind the story of this paper may be worth setting out separately, now that we have come to the end.There is perhaps one obvious omission to be addressed right away. Although the word information has occurred throughout this paper, it must have struck the reader that we have had nothing to say on what information is. In this respect, our theories may be like those in physics: which do not explain what energy is (a notion which seems quite similar to information in several ways), but only give some basic laws about its behaviour and transmission.     

On a problem of P(α, δ, π) concerning generalized Alexandroff s cube

Universality of generalized Alexandroff's cube plays essential role in theory of absolute retracts for the category of , -closure spaces. Alexandroff's cube. is an , -closure space generated by the family of all complete filters. in a lattice of all subsets of a set of power .Condition P(, , ) says that is a closure space of all , -filters in the lattice ( ), .Assuming that P (, , ) holds, in the paper [2], there are given sufficient conditions saying when an , -closure space is an absolute retract for the category of , -closure spaces (see Theorems 2.1 and 3.4 in [2]).It seems that, under assumption that P (, , ) holds, it will be possible to givean uniform characterization of absolute retracts for the category of , -closure-spaces.Except Lemma 3.1 from [1], there is no information when the condition P (, , ) holds or when it does not hold.The main result of this paper says, that there are examples of cardinal numbers, , , such that P (, , ) is not satisfied.Namely it is proved, using elementary properties of Lebesgue measure on the real line, that the condition P (, ₁, 2 ) is not satisfied.Moreover it is shown that fulfillment of the condition is essential assumption in, Theorems 2.1 and 3.4 from [1] i.e. it cannot be eliminated.     

Finite structural axiomatization of every finite-valued propositional calculus

In [2] A. Wroski proved that there is a strongly finite consequence C which is not finitely based i.e. for every consequence C ⁺ determined by a finite set of standard rules C C ⁺. In this paper it will be proved that for every strongly finite consequence C there is a consequence C ⁺ determined by a finite set of structural rules such that C(Ø)=C ⁺(Ø) and = (where , are consequences obtained by adding to the rules of C, C ⁺ respectively the rule of substitution). Moreover it will be shown that under certain assumptions C=C ⁺.     

What is non-fregean in the semantics of Wittgenstein'sTractatus and why?

From J.M. Bocheski's Rady starego filozofa [Advice of the old philosopher]: 6. Pytaj sie Zawsze (i) co to znaczy? i (ii) dlaczego? [Ask always (i) what does it mean? and (ii) why?]     

A New Representation Theorem for Contranegative Deontic Logic

The logic of an ought operator O is contranegative with respect to an underlying preference relation if it satisfies the property Op & (¬p)(¬q) Oq. Here the condition that is interpolative ((p (pq) q) (q (pq) p)) is shown to be necessary and sufficient for all -contranegative preference relations to satisfy the plausible deontic postulates agglomeration (Op & OqO(p&q)) and disjunctive division (O(p&q) Op Oq).     

Emeralds are no chameleons — Why “Grue” is not projectible for induction

The model function for induction of Goodmans's composite predicate Grue was examined by analysis. Two subpredicates were found, each containing two further predicates which are mutually exclusive (green and blue, observed before and after t). The rules for the inductive processing of composite predicates were studied with the more familiar predicate blellow (blue and yellow) for violets and primroses. The following rules for induction were violated by processing grue: From two subpredicates only one (blue after t) appears in the conclusion. As a statement about a future and unobserved condition this subpredicate, however, is not projectible for induction whereas the only suitable predicate (green before t) does not show up in the conclusion. In a disjunction a v b where a is true and b false the disjunction is true. When, however, the only true component is dropped, what remains is necessarily false. An analogous mistake may be observed in the processing of grue, where the only true component (green) was dropped in the conclusion. — As a potent criterion for correct inductions a check of the necessity of the conclusions is recommended.The author is indebted to Prof. Curt Christian for valuable suggestions.     

Linear programming techniques for multidimensional analysis of preferences

This paper offers a new methodology for analyzing individual differences in preference judgments with regard to a set of stimuli prespecified in a multidimensional attribute space. The individual is modelled as possessing an ideal point denoting his most preferred stimulus location in this space and a set of weights which reveal the relative saliences of the attributes. He prefers those stimuli which are closer to his ideal point (in terms of a weighted Euclidean distance measure). A linear programming model is proposed for external analysisi.e., estimation of the coordinates of his ideal point and the weights (involved in the Euclidean distance measure) by analyzing his paired comparison preference judgments on a set of stimuli, prespecified by their coordinate locations in the multidimensional space. A measure of poorness of fit is developed and the linear programming model minimizes this measure overall possible solutions. The approach is fully nonmetric, extremely flexible, and uses paired comparison judgments directly. The weights can either be constrained nonnegative or left unconstrained. Generalizations of the model to consider ordinal or interval preference data and to allow an orthogonal transformation of the attribute space are discussed. The methodology is extended to perform internal analysis,i.e., to determine the stimuli locations in addition to weights and ideal points by analyzing the preference judgments of all subjects simultaneously. Computational results show that the methodology for external analysis is unbiased—i.e., on an average it recovers the true ideal point and weights. These studies also indicate that the technique performs satisfactorily even when about 20 percent of the paired comparison judgments are incorrectly specified.The authors wish to express their deep appreciation to J. Douglas Carroll and Joseph B. Kruskal for their most valuable comments on an earlier version of this paper.