Towards a theory of presence

Africans are in the habit of venerating the dead among them who qualify as ancestors. The practice of ancestral veneration in Africa, particularly amongst the Yòrùbá people of West Africa, is premised on their belief in continual existence after death. The supposition is that the dead, who have now become ancestors, play active roles in their activities, in the plight of their children and grandchildren and their lives entirely. The ancestors are believed to possess the ability to influence either positively or negatively the fortune of the living. Belief in the existence of ancestors amongst Africans is paramount in African traditional religious belief systems. The ancestors are taken to be intermediaries between the living, the divinities and the Supreme Being. Ancestors therefore occupy an important place in African, particularly Yòrùbá ontology. Communion with ancestors therefore takes the form of veneration, in which the people honour, respect and look after them in their afterlives as well as possibly seek their guidance for the living descendants. Among the Yòrùbá people, ancestral veneration takes various forms as being evident in their traditional practices. The Yòrùbá have requirements for the conferment of ancestor-hood on a deceased soul, and as such not everyone who dies becomes an ancestor in Yòrùbá ontology. The task of this paper is to interrogate the practice of ancestral veneration as a metaphysical issue that is evident among the Yòrùbá people of Africa, while also delving into the discussion of the basic requirements for ancestor-hood amongst the Yòrùbá. This paper presents ancestors in Yòrùbá culture as spiritual agents of establishing social order, based on the belief in their continual relevance in the physical world. The role of ancestors as spiritual agents of social reconstruction will also be interrogated against emergent and dominant forces, such as globalisation, using the framework of glocalisation.

This anthology of the work of Baruch de (1632-1677) presents the text of Spinoza's masterwork, the Ethics, in what is now the standard translation by Edwin Curley. Also included are selections from other works by Spinoza, chosen by Curley to make the Ethics easier to understand, and a substantial introduction that gives an overview of Spinoza's life and the main themes of his philosophy. Perfect for course use, the Spinoza Reader is a practical tool with which to approach one of the world's greatest but most difficult thinkers, a passionate seeker of the truth who has been viewed by some as an atheist and by others as a religious mystic. The anthology begins with the opening section of the Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect, which has always moved readers by its description of the young Spinoza's spiritual quest, his dissatisfaction with the things people ordinarily strive for - wealth, honour, and sensual pleasure - and his hope that the pursuit of knowledge would lead him to discover the true good. The emphasis throughout these selections is on metaphysical, epistemological, and religious issues - the existence and nature of God, his relation to the world

The dispute between direct and indirect realism involves a combination of metaphysical and epistemological issues. According to indirect realism, perception is a triadic relation between a perceiver, a physical object that is perceived indirectly, and some private entity that is perceived directly. Standard objections to indirect realism derive immediately from the introduction of this third entity that supposedly stands between the perceiver and the external world. In particular, it is argued that if indirect realism were true it would be impossible for us to achieve knowledge of the physical world exactly because we are cut off from any direct perceptual access to that world. In other words, it is argued that an unacceptable epistemological consequence follows from the indirect realist's main metaphysical thesis. Direct realism eliminates this third entity and, it is widely assumed, thus leaves us in a better epistemic position than does indirect realism. In this paper I will challenge the claim that we are in a better position for learning about the physical world if direct realism is true than if indirect realism is true. It will be useful to begin by reviewing some of the central objections to indirect realism in a bit more detail. The most common forms of indirect realism hold that we directly perceive mental entities-variously referred to as 'ideas', 'sensa', or 'sense-data'-that are caused by a purely physical interaction between the perceiver and the physical world. But once such entities are introduced, the existence of illusions, hallucinations and dreams forces us to conclude that we cannot deduce the properties of physical objects-or even that physical objects exist-from the properties of the objects we perceive. At least since Locke, proponents of indirect realism have accepted this conclusion. In response, they have held that claims about the physical world must be justified by hypothetico-deductive argument and that perception

The Aesthetics of Democracy

BOOK REVIEWS 685 Wittgenstein: To Follow a Rule. Edited by STEVEN HoLTZMANN and CHRISTOPHER LEICH. (International Library of Philosophy.) London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1981. Pp. xiii + 250. Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations was published in 1953, and despite the continuing appearance of -0ther major "late" works, such as the recently published Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology, the tenor of his later philosophy has been unmistakeable for decades. Yet basic interpretative questions about the nature of his work remain in dispute. What is the relevance of the later Wittgenstein to the problems with which philosophers have traditionally been concerned¥ Does he redefine the issues about mind and body, language, knowledge, and perception ? Does he ignore these issues, pushing them aside in the construction of an edifying philosophical discourse f Or does he, albeit obscurely, con- !rant the traditional problems in their traditional forms1 Such questions as these range far beyond the interpretation of Wittgenstein . The nature of philosophy itself-always a matter of contentionhas received unusually extensive and unusually able attention in the last few years. Major books by Cavell, Nozick, Rorty, and Putnam are representative of this concern. As conceived and practiced by the contributors to this volume, philosophy is a domain of determinate problems to be confronted. And whatever their differences in the exegesis of Philosophi- 'cai lnvestigwtions 139"'242, they are agreed in finding the text to be Wittgenstein's systematic treatment of certain central, perennial philosophical issues. Steven Holtzmann and Christopher Leich have collected essays originally presented at a colloquium in Oxford in Spring, 1979. Following an introductory piece by the editors, the eight essays are grouped into sections dealing successively with the interpretation of Philosophical Investigations 139-242, the implications of Wittgenstein's arguments in those passages for the possibility of formal semantic theory, the implications of. those arguments for the controversy between cognitivism and non-cognitivism in ethics, and their implications for the philosophy of the social sciences. These seemingly disparate topics are linked by the idea that the apparently piecemeal argumentation of the central problems of Philosophcal Investigations in fact contains "a single underlying set of powerful arguments" (xi-xii) offering general considerations -0n "global issues in metaphysics and epistemology." Thus the book has a two-fold program: first, to present and argue a systematic Wittgensteinian position on rules and rule-following, and, second, to discuss the implications of that systematic view for the topics mentioned. 686 BOOK REVIEWS Arguing in their introductory essay that Wittgenstein displays an inexpungeable anthropocentrism in the notion of objectivity, the editors discuss first, whether Wittgenstein held the "majoritarian '.' view that a. word's meaning is fixed by the consensus of a majority of speakers, and, second, whether his insistence that public practice determines what constitutes a reason for an action or an interpretation lands ethics in cultural relativism. Their contention in each case is " No." In the first instance a rather tortuous argument concludes with the assertion that reading Wittgenstein as holding the "majoritarian" view depends on understanding him to be attempting to refute general scepticism. This they deny, but without elaboration. In the second instance, eager to avoid the "highly conservative implications" (23) of cultural relativism, they attempt to show that Wittgenstein's anthropocentrism offers the possibility -yet to be worked out-of rationality and objectivity in ethics. The first essay in Part One is Gordon Baker's detailed exegesis of Philosophical Investigations 143-242. He acknowledges that portions of this text strike some readers as a " hitherto unknown kind of madness " (58), but argues that it contains Wittgenstein's portrayal of rule-following as the use of instruments of measurement-a needed corrective to the still-prevalent tendency to think of linguistic rules of sublime or transcendently authoritative. So, argues Baker, Wittgenstein clears away a mistaken picture of rule-following in order to show that such activities, though not mechanical or automatic, are yet objective. He resists the notion that Wittgenstein's view disposes of objectivity by explaining it as merely psychological, relative, voluntarist, or behavioristic. Rather, " by eliminating the illusion that anything stands in need of theoretical explanation , it preempts the place occupied by any possible theory of rulefollowing " (58). Replying to Baker, Christopher...

This study sought to examine the phenomena of Power-Words which have significant power to exert control of both the physical and spiritual or invisible realm. Power-Words have power beyond the ordinary speech of communicating ideas. It is direct and does not need meditation. The study found that Power-Words are said to have inherent power to deal with all realms of life. They are used in the animistic worldview for protection, provision and treatment against the exigencies of life experienced in the physical and spiritual world. In the use of Power-Words, the findings observed that a careful application of Power-Words is needed so as to avoid a syncretistic attitude that enters the biblical worldview from an animistic worldview which presupposes the sovereignty of man where he plans what is desirable for oneself in his environment. Man becomes God for himself or becomes co-equal with God, which is a humanistic attitude of trying to achieve one's own desired goals. This is a false authority in handling and working out one's own destiny. This piece of work concludes that God cannot be manipulated in any form or any means. God will not share his glory with man; hence Power-Words used by man without acknowledging the sovereignty of God are contrary to the character and nature of God.

The beginnings of cosmic history form, for Irenaeus, the design and set on which the drama of human history will be played out. The genesis of the cosmos is the picture, painted in unfinished outline yet of significant descriptive value, of its future and, ultimately, of its end. Irenaeus is no Jew, and can hardly be thought of as versed in Jewish thought. The idea that God's motivation for creation is his own inherent goodness seems, at first reading, an unsatisfying answer to the question at hand. The nature of God as one who creates ex nihilo reveals to Irenaeus significant details on the character of the physical and spiritual worlds, about the very being of beings. As with his reflections on God's motivation for creation, Irenaeus' reflections on the precise contours of creation ex nihilo were not formed in isolation from the varied considerations of those around him.Keywords:ex nihilo; genesis; God; Irenaeus; Jewish

To date, quantum mechanics has proven to be our most successful theoretical model. However, it is still surrounded by a "mysterious halo" that can be summarized in a simple but challenging question: Why quantum phenomena are not understood under the same logic as classical ones? Although this is an open question (probably without an answer), from a pragmatist's point of view there is still room enough to further explore the quantum world, marveling ourselves with new physical insights. We just need to look back in the historical evolution of the quantum theory and thoroughly reconsider three key issues: (1) how this has developed since its early stages at a conceptual level, (2) what kind of experiments can be performed at present in a laboratory, and (3) what nonstandard conceptual models are available to extract some extra information. This contribution is aimed at providing some answers (and, perhaps, also raising some issues) to these questions through one of such models, namely Bohmian mechanics, a hydrodynamic formulation of the quantum theory, which is currently trying to open new pathways of understanding. Specifically, the Chapter constitutes a brief and personal overview on the historic and contextual evolution of this quantum formulation, its physical meaning and interest (leaving aside metaphysical issues), and how it may help to overcome some preconceived paradoxical aspects of the quantum theory.

In this thesis we present two geometric theories designed to extend general relativity. It can be seen as one of the aims of such theories to model the observed accelerating expansion of the universe as a gravitational phenomenon, or to provide a mathematical structure for the formulation of quantum field theories on curved spacetimes and quantum gravity. This thesis splits into two parts: In the first part we consider multimetric gravity theories containing N > 1 standard model copies which interact only gravitationally and repel each other in the Newtonian limit. The dynamics of each of the standard model copies is governed by its own metric tensor. We show that the antisymmetric case, in which the mutual repulsion between the different matter sectors is of equal strength compared to the attractive gravitational force within each sector, is prohibited by a no-go theorem for N = 2. We further show that this theorem does not hold for N > 2 by explicitly constructing an antisymmetric multimetric repulsive gravity theory. We then examine several properties of this theory. Most notably, we derive a simple cosmological model and show that the accelerating expansion of the late universe can indeed be explained by the mutual repulsion between the different matter sectors. We further present a simple model for structure formation and show that our model leads to the formation of filament-like structures and voids. Finally, we show that multimetric repulsive gravity is compatible with high-precision solar system data using the parametrized post-Newtonian formalism. In the second part of the thesis we propose a mathematical model of quantum spacetime as an infinite-dimensional manifold locally homeomorphic to an appropriate Schwartz space. This extends and unifies both the standard function space construction of quantum mechanics and the differentiable manifold structure of classical spacetime. In this picture we demonstrate that classical spacetime emerges as a finite-dimensional manifold through the topological identification of all quantum points with identical position expectation value. We speculate on the possible relevance of this geometry to quantum field theory and gravity.

Thirty years ago, John Preskill concluded "that the information loss paradox may well presage a revolution in fundamental physics" and mused that "Conceivably, the puzzle of black hole evaporation portends a scientific revolution as sweeping as that that led to the formulation of quantum theory in the early 20th century." Many still agree with this assessment. On the other hand, it seems to me the "paradox" has little to do with the physical world but rather, at best, simply points out the possible inconsistency of two, already disparate, theories (mathematical models) of nature, general relativity and quantum mechanics, with virtually no conceivable observational consequences. The information paradox hinges on the concepts of a pure quantum state, the unitarity of quantum mechanics, and Hawking's semi-classical calculation of black hole evaporation. I used the qualifier "at best" above because, for me, the concept of a quantum state is far more restrictive than required by the paradox while unitarity is not a property of nature but rather of a mathematical model and is already violated by the process of making a measurement. Furthermore, the semi-classical calculation of Hawking is surely of limited applicability.

In his seminal article “Metaphor and Theory Change: What is `Metaphor ́ a metaphor for?” (1993, [1979]), Richard Boyd describes a certain class of metaphors within science, namely, the theory-constitutive metaphors (henceforth the TCMs); this class of metaphors, Boyd explains, plays an important role in the formulation and development of theories because they express explanatory claims which, at least for the time being, cannot be conceived in any other known (literal) way. Hence, TCMs become a part of scientific thought and the development of concepts. TCMs can fix reference to casual relations in the physical world, even though they have an open-endedness (vagueness and are not fully explicated); the TCMs, therefore, have a programmatic character or they invite further research. In the following we try to add more characteristics to the TCMs from a Peircean perspective, namely, that the TCMs depend on abduction – this 1) makes them both creative and explanatory, 2) relates them to guessing and anchors them in instinct, whereby 3) their plausibility concerns an affinity between mind and nature.

Chiral extrapolation of the $X(3872)$ binding energy is investigated using the modified Weinberg formulation of chiral effective field theory for the $D \bar{D}^*$ scattering. Given its explicit renormalisability, this approach is particularly useful to explore the interplay of the long- and short-range $D \bar{D}^*$ forces in the $X(3872)$ from studying the light-quark (pion) mass dependence of its binding energy. In particular, the parameter-free leading-order calculation shows that the $X$-pole disappears for unphysical large pion masses. On the other hand, without contradicting the naive dimensional analysis, the higher-order pion-mass-dependent contact interaction can change the slope of the binding energy at the physical point yielding the opposite scenario of a stronger bound $X$ at pion masses larger than its physical value. An important role of the pion dynamics and of the 3-body $D\bar{D}\pi$ effects for chiral extrapolations of the $X$-pole is emphasised. The results of the present study should be of practical value for the lattice simulations since they provide a non-trivial connection between lattice points at unphysical pion masses and the physical world.

For a brief time in history, it was possible to imagine that a sufficiently advanced intellect could, given sufficient time and resources, in principle understand how to mathematically prove everything that was true. They could discern what math corresponds to physical laws, and use those laws to predict anything that happens before it happens. That time has passed. Godel’s undecidability results (the incompleteness theorems), Turing’s proof of non-computable values, the formulation of quantum theory, chaos, and other developments over the past century have shown that there are rigorous arguments limiting what we can prove, compute, and predict. While some connections between these results have come to light, many remain obscure, and the implications are unclear. Are there, for example, real consequences for physics — including quantum mechanics — of undecidability and non-computability? Are there implications for our understanding of the relations between agency, intelligence, mind, and the physical world? This book, based on the winning essays from the annual FQXi competition, contains ten explorations of Undecidability, Uncomputability, and Unpredictability. The contributions abound with connections, implications, and speculations while undertaking rigorous but bold and open-minded investigation of the meaning of these constraints for the physical world, and for us as humans.​

Time is a fundamental property of the physical world. Because time encompasses the antinomic qualities of transience and duration, the definition of time poses a dilemma for the formulation of a comprehensive physical theory. The partial elimination of time is a common solution to this dilemma. In his mechanical philosophy, Newton appears to resort to the elimination of the transient quality of time by identifying time with duration. It is suggested, however, that the transient quality of time may be identified as the active component of the Newtonian concept of inertia, a quasi occult quality of matter that is correlated with change, and that is essential to defining duration. The assignment of the transient quality of time to matter is a necessary consequence of Newton's attempt to render a world system of divine mathematical order. Newton's interest in alchemy reflects this view that matter is active and mutable in nature.

In the second half of the 20th century, the Soviet humanities faced crisis of their philosophical foundations — the materialist understanding of history. In epistemological terms, it was caused by the discovered heuristic limits of the abstract-universal materialist theory, which describes the general in the development of reality but eliminates all the diversity of the particular in it. Over time, there emerged two interrelated trends within this crisis — the gradual formulation of the concrete-universal theory, which describes both the general and (in a generalized form) the whole diversity of the particular in development, and the degradation of the abstract-universal theory. The disintegration of the abstract-universal theory has become the dominant trend. It manifested itself in the fact that, recognizing that the general provisions of materialism were true in principle, most Soviet authors began to depart from them when analyzing specific historical phenomena. It was concluded that in a particular situation, social being does not always determine social consciousness, the basis does not always determine the superstructure, material production does not always determine political life and culture. At the same time, there was a rejection of dialectics, an integral part of Marxism. The opinion was often expressed about the equivalence of opposites in their unity and relativity of those parties that were recognized as absolute in traditional Marxism. Such theoretical conclusions resulted in the rejection of historical materialism and transition of the overwhelming majority of the national humanities representatives to the positions of pre-marxist and non-classical philosophy.