Categories and Facets in Integrative Levels

Facets and general categories used in bibliographic classification have been based on a disciplinary organization of knowledge. However, facets and categories of phenomena independent from disciplines can be identified similarly. Phenomena can be classified according to a series of integrative levels (layers), which in turn can be grouped into the major strata of form, matter, life, mind, society and culture, agreeing with Nicolai Hartmann’s ontology. Unlike a layer, a stratum is not constituted of elements of the lower ones; rather, it represents the formal pattern of the lower ones, like the horse hoof represents the shape of the steppe. Bibliographic categories can now be seen in the light of level theory: some categories are truly general, while others only appear at a given level, being the realization of a general category in the specific context of the level: these are the facets of that level. In the notation of the Integrative Level Classification project, categories and facets are represented by digits, and displayed in a Web interface with the help of colours.     

Three obstructions: forms of causation,chronotopoids, and levels of reality

The thesis is defended that the theories of causation, time and space, and levels of reality are mutually interrelated in such a way that the difficulties internal to theories of causation and to theories of space and time can be understood better, and perhaps dealt with, in the categorial context furnished by the theory of the levels of reality. The structural condition for this development to be possible is that the first two theories be opportunely generalized.

On the alleged impossibility of coherence

If coherence is to have justificatory status, as some analytical philosophers think it has, it must be truth-conducive, if perhaps only under certain specific conditions. This paper is a critical discussion of some recent arguments that seek to show that under no reasonable conditions can coherence be truth-conducive. More specifically, it considers Bovens and Hartmann’s and Olsson’s “impossibility results,” which attempt to show that coherence cannot possibly be a truth-conducive property. We point to various ways in which the advocates of a coherence theory of justification may attempt to divert the threat of these results.     

N.哈特曼的价值柏拉图主义

N.哈特曼的价值柏拉图主义是由价值本质论、关系论、发现论、理想论、原则论等观点构成的一个完整的理论范式。如果说在柏拉图的理念论中概念与理念处于一种杂合不分的混沌状态,休谟、叔本华等不满于此状态而试图对其作出明晰的区分,那么这些观点显示哈特曼既欲明晰鸿沟又要弥合鸿沟的理论创意。立基于价值柏拉图主义和价值绝对主义,又摆向价值自然主义和价值相对主义,显示了哈特曼价值论乃至整个价值柏拉图主义的理论困境及摆脱困境的理论努力。