Metaphysical Problems Research Articles

Le continu et les intuitions mathématiques. Problèmes liés à l'intuition mathématique dans la pensée de Gödel

The continuum and mathematical intuitions. Problems related to mathematical intuition in Godel's philosophy. In 1938, Gödel announced his proof for the relative consistency of the continuum hypothesis with regards to the usual axioms of set theory. Until 1943, he devotes most of his research to an attempt to prove its independence. He will up to the end of his career continue to think, as a philosopher, about the problem of the continuum. We first distinguish different modes of intuition that appear in Gödel's writings in relation to the continuum. We then discuss the metaphysical problems that these intuitions raise. What is, for example, the role of time in mathematical intuition ? If there is an abstract intuition, does it use a specific organ ? If so, how should one conceive the influence of a mathematical object on a bodily organ ? If mathematics has a universal value and if it requires different kinds of intuition, should we attribute these intuitions to all beings, such as God, capable of mathematics ? Thus the analysis of Godel's remarks on mathematical intuition introduces us some of the questions of his metaphysics. We essentially rely on Gödel's archives at Princeton University Library.

Is the Problem of the Many a Problem in Metaphysics?

(Qualifiedly) No. With the qualification explicit: assuming the view of vagueness as semantic indecision, the problem of the many is one about semantics. Or so I argue.

Metaphysical problems of the 13th- and 14th-century arabic geometry : the works of Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī, Quṭb al-Dīn al-Shīrāzī and their contemporaries

Metaphysical problems of the 13th- and 14th-century arabic geometry : the works of Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī, Quṭb al-Dīn al-Shīrāzī and their contemporaries

Metaphysical Problems in the Philosophy of Medicine and Bioethics

Metaphysical Problems in the Philosophy of Medicine and Bioethics

The Wild Child

L'Enfant sauvage de François Truffaut expose le privilège que la modernité du dix-neuvième siècle accordait à ta connexion entre la parole et l'audition par rapport à la tenue droite. En traçant l'incapacité de l'enfant sauvage d'Aveyron à répondre « au traitement de la parole », le film offre également divers arguments théoriques sur la subjectivité et la représentation. Bien que le film de Truffaut soit habituellement décrit comme docudrame basé sur une « histoire vraie », il remet en question le mythe référentiel et la pensée binaire sur lesquels il se fonde. Le film est autant un compte-rendu de la vie du réalisateur et de la philosophie de la Nouvelle Vague, qu'un récit « réaliste » sur le Dr. Itard et le cas de l'enfant sauvage. Itard est coincé dans le différend entre la science des Lumières et la substance du mythe.

Heidegger and the Metaphysics of Memory

My analysis in the following paper will focus on a subtle development in Heidegger's interpretation ofthe theme ofmemory, from the period of his early Freiburg lectures to Being and Time and then in the works of the late 1920s. There is in this period an apparent shift in Heidegger's understanding of this theme, which cornes to light above all in his way of examining memory in the 1921 Freiburg course lectures Augustine and Neo-Platonism, then in Being and Time (1927) and finally in the 1928 lectures on the metaphysical foundations of logic (Metaphysische Anfangsgrunde der Logik im Ausgang von Leibniz) and Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics (1929). This shift is of interest, as I will argue, not only in indicating an internal development of Heidegger's thinking, but above all in regard to the problem of the finitude of memory which Heidegger brings into focus and which I will interpret in my concluding remarks.

The Problem of Evil in Józef Tischner's Philosophy

The problem of evil is a metaphysical problem bound up with the conditions of human existence. The radical evil of fascism and communism, according to Józef Tischner, opens up the possibility that we live in the time of a modern Manichaeism, understood as having two faces: nihilism and pessimism. The possibility of thinking of such a modem form of Manichaeism necessarily calls for a new inquiry into the question of evil. For Tischner, evil, like good, is not an object, but something in which man participates, and for this reason it cannot be objectified and defined. One can only ask how it appears.

The Quantum Mind/Classical Brain Problem

The quantum theory of mind allows a shift from the Mind/Brain metaphysical problem to the Quantum Mind/Classical Brain scientific problem: how could systematic and coherent quantum processes - assumed to be the physical support of our conscious experiences - occur in a macroscopic system as the brain? I discuss a solution based on a neurobiological model that attributes to quantum computation in intra-neuronal signal-transduction pathways the role of directly supporting phenomenal experience. In this model, quantum coherence is created or prepared by classical mechanisms as recurrent neuronal networks, oscillatory synchrony and gated membrane channels, thus avoiding common theoretical constraints for the existence of quantum communication and computation, as ultra-cold temperatures and quasi-isolation from the environment.

The Folk Probably Don't Think What You Think They Think: Experiments on Causation by Absence

Folk theories—untutored people’s (often implicit) theories about various features of the world—have been fashionable objects of inquiry in psychology for almost two decades now (e.g., Hirschfeld and Gelman 1994), and more recently they have been of interest in experimental philosophy (Nichols 2004). Folk theories of psychology, physics, biology, and ethics have all come under investigation. Folk metaphysics, however, has not been as extensively studied. That so little is known about folk metaphysics is unfortunate for (at least) two reasons. First, folk metaphysics is almost certainly implicit, and it is likely to be our default way of thinking about metaphysical problems. Moreover, one’s metaphysical commitments can have profound consequences—in scientific, religious, and ethical contexts, for example. Thus, folk metaphysics ought to be dragged out into the open and exposed to criticism. As Peirce eloquently remarked (1994, 1.129; see also 1994, 7.579),

The Epistemological Approach to Mental Causation

Epistemological approaches to mental causation argue that the notorious problem of mental causation as captured in the question “How can irreducible, physically realized, and potentially relational mental properties be causally efficacious in the production of physical effects?” has a very simple solution: One merely has to abandon any metaphysical considerations in favor of epistemological considerations and accept that our explanatory practice is a much better guide to causal relevance than the metaphysical reasoning carried out from the philosophical armchair. I argue that epistemological approaches to mental causation do not enjoy any genuine advantage over theories which treat the problem of mental causation as a genuinely metaphysical problem.

An ideal solution to disputes about multiply realized kinds

Multiply realizable kinds are scientifically problematic, for it appears that we should not expect discoveries about them to hold of other members of that kind. As such, it looks like MR kinds should have no place in the ontology of the special sciences. Many resist this conclusion, however, because we lack a positive account of the role that certain realization-unrestricted terms play in special science explanations. I argue that many such terms actually pick out idealizing models. Idealizing explanation has many of the features normally associated with explanation by MR kinds. As idealized models are usually mere possibilia, such explanations do not run afoul of the metaphysical problems that plague MR kinds.

Causal Powers, Realization, and Mental Causation

Sydney Shoemaker has attempted to save mental causation by a new account of realization. As Brian McLaughlin argues convincingly, the account has to face two major problems. First, realization does not guarantee entailment. So even if mental properties are realized by physical properties, they need not be entailed by them. This is the first, rather general metaphysical problem. A second problem, which relates more directly to mental causation is that Shoemaker must appeal to some kind of proportionality as a constraint on causation in order to avoid redundant mental causation. I argue that, in addition, a “piling problem” arises, since causal powers seem to be bestowed twice. Then, I try to sketch an alternative view of the relation between causal powers and properties—a reductionist view—which fares better on some accounts. But it may have to face another and, perhaps, serious problem, the “problem of the natural unity of properties”. Finally, I will pose a question about the relation between causal powers and causation.

Through the looking-glass: Objectivity, interpretation, and the construction of social kinds as emerging issues in research ethicss

Background: Access to the means of knowledge production is severely limited for many individuals who are socially, politically, and economically disadvantaged. Of particular concern, largely overlooked in bioethics discourse, is the manner by which surveillance, identification, and classification contribute to the creation of particular populations based on harmful social identities, and the subsequent stigmatization of the individuals subject to analysis. 
 Methods: Drawing from a range of philosophical and sociological literature, including Hans-Georg Gadamer, Charles Taylor, Bruno Latour, and Deborah Lupton, as well as public health discourse, this paper gives an analysis of a challenging metaphysical and ethical problem related to research practices and public health interventions in vulnerable communities. The themes of objectivism and stigmatization are illuminated by focusing on research related to HIV infection among survival sex workers in Vancouver’s downtown eastside. 
 Results: Reductionist models of human behaviour presuppose a clear distinction between description and evaluation, contributing to an understanding of social reality as structured by objective, base level data, and misconstruing modes of social relations as individual action. In the context of HIV risk, an ethical problem emerges: describing individual actions as “data,” or “fact,” serves to construct and reinforce transgressive social identities. Given that stigmatization is itself part of the context of adverse health outcomes and HIV infection, practices relying on methods that presume representational authority and fail to critically interpret human action are ethically problematic. Resolving difficulties within the methodological underpinnings of public health and HIV behavioural research requires an understanding of many social science methods as hermeneutical, while enabling the contribution of disparate standpoints to the production of scientific knowledge. 
 Conclusions: The implications of presumed objectivity and representational authority demand a reconsideration of how research in vulnerable communities might be conducted, such that it produces results that are scientifically rigorous and socially responsible.

Metaphysical problems in cosmology

A part of the major problems in the Friedmann cosmology is solved, and the ways to solution of the remaining problems are outlined.

Colour and Consciousness: Untying the Metaphysical Knot

Colours and consciousness both present us with metaphysical problems. But what exactly are the problems? According to standard accounts, they are roughly the following. On the one hand, we have reason to believe, about both colour and consciousness, that they are identical with some familiar natural phenomena. But on the other hand, it is hard to see how these identities could obtain. I argue that this is an adequate characterisation of our metaphysical problem of colour, but a mischaracterisation of the problem of consciousness. It mischaracterises the problem by presenting consciousness as more ‘colour-like’ than we have reason to take it to be. The real problem of consciousness is, I suggest, that almost nothing theoretically useful is known about this phenomenon at present. I also explore some implications of this perspective on the problem of consciousness. Given the shape of the problem, I argue that we can’t rule out all forms of eliminativism about consciousness. Nor can we rule out that future research will close the ‘explanatory gap’ that consciousness gives rise to.

Reading Kant Hermeneutically: Gadamer and the Critique of Judgment

The relationship between 20th-century phenomenology and the transcendental program launched by Immanuel Kant is crucial, but delicate. First there is Husserl, who seemed both attracted to and seriously critical of Kant's first Critique. Then there is Heidegger's ambition to scour the entire field of the three Critiques. Most important in this context, is probably his reading of the Critique of Pure Reason in Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics (1929). Faithful to his notion of a salvaging “destruction” of the philosophical tradition, Heidegger argues that the earliest version of Kant's work, the so-called A-deduction, is radically different from the philosophy promoted by the neo-Kantians. Kant, he claims, was not really interested in epistemology in the narrow meaning of the term. He was, rather, a philosopher verging upon a genuine ontology of Being, but who, for reasons that remain unknown, felt forced to leave these tracks behind in order to pursue the transcendental conditions of knowledge. Then there is the second Critique, which Heidegger approaches through a discussion of the Kantian notions of freedom and causality. And, finally, there are his remarks about the Critique of Judgment, scattered all over his writing on art from the early 1930s onwards. However, Heidegger never produces a proper, systematic account of the relevance of the third Critique. Such an account, I argue in this essay, is provided by Hans-Georg Gadamer.

Logic, Theology, and Poetry in Boethius, Abelard, and Alan of Lille: Words in the Absence of Things by Eileen Sweeney

BOOK REVIEWS Logic, Theology, and Poetry in Boethius, Abelard, andAlan ofLille: Words in the Absence ofThings. By EILEEN SWEENEY. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. Pp. 236. $65.00 (cloth). ISBN 1-4039-6972-8. This is a very timely study on an important segment of the intellectual tradition of the Middle Ages, one, moreover, that not many scholars with expertise in this field would be capable of undertaking. One reason is that it moves outside the set fields ofAugustinian, Victorine, or Chartrian studies, thus positioning itself deliberately in an open arena. Another reason is that it combines three divergent areas, that is, logic, theology, and poetry. Whereas any combination of two would have yielded interesting but slightly predictable perspectives (logic and theology, theology and poetry), the addition of a third derails any prior notions of synthesis and harmonious development one might have. The combination of authors from Boethius to Abelard and on to Alan of Lille is a responsible choice and creates an exciting span, as the Three Theological Treatises of Boethius are connected with the Theological Rules of Alan of Lille, reflecting the longue duree that is typical of medieval thought. The fact that Sweeney's analysis is under three hundred pages long speaks to her authorial skills, as her conciseness of argument makes for a clear and efficient read. The book's subtitle is "Words in the Absence of Things," which points to the similar texture of semantics found in all three authors, connecting them as part of one continuous tradition. The major achievement of the study lies in its view of the era from late antiquity to the early Scholastic in an unbroken light. Doing so requires intellectual reach and philosophical stamina, both of which are demonstrated here in exemplary fashion. Sweeney's book unfolds as follows. In the introduction she clarifies her thematic approach of "words in the absence of things" by referring to Augustine's division of reality into signs and things-the latter referring ultimately only to God-which was designed in his On Christian Doctrine and canonized in Peter Lombard's Sentences. Based on this division, all metaphysical problems are problems that regard signs, and hence pose as problems of interpretation, an interpretation that is duly complicated because its central object, that is, God, is itself the only 'thing' and as such inexpressible. This is the absence to which the book's subtitle refers, and which rather indicates a latent presence or substrate. Rather than analyzing the thought of Augustine-whose responsibility for the "semiological consciousness of the Christian West" stems 319 320 BOOK REVIEWS from his firm interest in "redeemed language" mediated through the presence of Christ as the Word-however, Sweeney focuses on the technical mastery of the language arts exhibited by Boethius, Abelard, and Alan. Her overall thesis is that even in these potentially more arid thinkers the logical and analytical were combined with the imaginative and the existential, a connection that would last until the thirteenth century. Although a similar point about the merger of analytical and imaginative discourse was made by Peter Dronke (see his Fabula: Explorations into the Uses ofMyth in Medieval Platonism [Leiden and Cologne: E. J. Brill, 1974], 1), it has rarely been turned into an epistemological program and Sweeney should be much commended for doing so. The book has three chapters, which are similar in length and closely follow the texts of the selected authors. The chapter on Boethius (7-61) is entitled "Translation, Transfer and Transport," and combines an analysis of his mediating function in the history of Western thought with the more unusual task of lending a kind of unity to his works, portraying him in the process as an original and autonomous thinker rather than a compiler. Main Boethian themes are the distinction between the order of words and things and the conventionality of language (8). Notwithstanding Boethius's aim of mediation, Sweeney rightly points out how his logical categories form an extra layer between the reader and the things described by the text (9), thereby causing many of the intellectual problems with which the Middle Ages would henceforth struggle. Sweeney discusses the Commentary on the Isagoge, the Commentary on the...

Grace and the New Man

Kant's discussion of radical evil and moral regeneration in Religion Within the Bounds of Reason Alone raises numerous moral and metaphysical problems. If the ground of one's disposition does not lie in time, as Kant argues, how can it be reformed, as the moral law commands? If divine aid is necessary for this impossible reformation, how does this not destroy a person's moral personality by bypassing her freedom? This paper argues that these problems can be resolved by showing how Kant can conceive the moral law itself as kind of grace which, willed properly, makes moral regeneration possible without destroying the autonomy of the individual.

Hitchcock as Philosopher (review)

Analytical Ocean Alfred Hitchcock is, arguably, the most written about cinematic figure of all time. Scholars, critics, and historians have continued to study his films with great scrutiny and frequency. He is the penultimate, the alpha and the omega of theoretical cinematic discourse, the blueprint by which academics from all around the globe use to construct their own thoughts and opinions of a man some may consider the greatest film director of all time. So, it comes as no surprise that a philosophy professor, Robert J. Yanal, would decide to contribute his own ideas into what has now become a vast analytical ocean that consists mainly of Hitchcock theory. Unfortunately, Hitchcock as Philosopher is just a small fish in that ocean. Writing a text that relies more on plot summary than on solid theory, Yanal, even with this fascinating way to look at Hitchcock's films, is unsuccessful in the project he undertakes. Yanal begins Hitchcock as Philosopher by choosing three arbitrary philosophical terms—Deception, Mind, and Knowledge—and then attempts to connect these ideas to Hitchcock's characterizations showing that they speak "general truths about human nature" (3) while at the same time embodying all three of the criteria Yanal claims are imperative to the study of philosophy. Uncle Charlie and Charlie in Shadow of Doubt, Guy and Bruno in Strangers on a Train, and Norman Bates in Psycho (amongst others) raise "a problem of morals or metaphysics," "solves such a problem," and then "defends its solution" rather than refuting that problem as not being a possibility (4). It is here where Yanal builds an interesting argument in simple terms and applied to a subject that both academics and laymen could follow. But Yanal's argument breaks down when he starts to take Hitchcock literally in his interviews with Truffaut and Bogdanovich while also taking the stance that Hitchcock "may not have engaged much in explicit philosophizing," but""always aspired to be" a philosopher while creating films that he wanted to be commercial successes (10). Hitchcock never "aspired" to be the philosopher; that is to say that to place that label onto his characters could well be a correct assumption, but when discussing Hitchcock one must realize that he understood that to be the philosopher would be an impossibility. Rene Descartes writes that there is a good God who is the supreme source of all truth and there is "an evil genius, supremely powerful and clever, who has directed his entire effort at deceiving me." Hitchcock is certainly not the good God, nor a philosopher trying to get to the "truth"; Hitchcock, instead, is the "evil genius" who weaves a deceptive "truth" by using his films to manipulate his audience. He uses characters, bizarre situations, and his camera to present to us a world that is seemingly filled with truth, with real life possibilities, and then laughs at us because of our gullibility. Yanal thus falls into that trap by believing this "evil genius" and his deceptions. By using Deception as one of his narrative focuses towards what, ultimately, is a fruitless goal, he exposes the cracks in his theory and allows Hitchcock to continue to thrive as Hollywood's greatest deceiver. Yanal, at the end of his chapter on Deception, almost penetrates past Hitchcock's trickery, giving the reader a sense of hope that Yanal can maneuver his way out of the director's dishonesty. While discussing North by Northwest, he states that it is "tempting to see the professor as a stand-in for the director: not only does the professor create the fiction of George Kaplan, the source of confusion, but he is the only principal character never deceived about what's real and what's make-believe" (78). And, in his last two sentences, Yanal sees that "Hitchcock is showing off his prowess: as a great manipulator of fictional characters and of real audiences. And...

The Structure of Time: Language, Meaning and Temporal Cognition (review)

Reviewed by: The structure of time: Language, meaning and temporal cognition by Vyvyan Evans Brigitte Nerlich The structure of time: Language, meaning and temporal cognition. By Vyvyan Evans. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2004. Pp. 287. ISBN 158811466X. $114 (Hb). ‘Everyone knows about time. We have spare time, we gain time, we lose time. We mark time, keep time, play for time, but in the end time waits for no one. You can tell the time from a clock, but few people can handle the really tricky time question’ (Arnold 2002:5, italics added). So what can we learn from this book? Reading the book was a bit like untying a ball of knots one after the other until, by Ch. 5, I was able to follow a much smoother line of thought and explanation. The book has three parts: orientation, concepts for time, and models for time. The books starts with an explanation of what physicists and philosophers call the realist or absolutist view of time, that there is ‘true’ time, a time that actually exists in a physical sense and agrees with the laws of nature. Evans calls this the ‘common-place view of time’. This is only one way that physicists conceptualize time, though there are several others (see Callender & Edney 2001). E explains that this view of time seems to be contradicted in two ways: (i) by our feeling that time is elusive and imperceptible, and (ii) because there does not appear to be a neurological apparatus that enables us to perceive global time (4). This gives rise to what he calls the metaphysical problem of time, which can be summarized as: time exists and does not exist at the same time. His book intends to refute the physicalist view of time but also the view that time is an abstraction derived from comparing events, a view espoused by some cognitive linguists. E’s own hypothesis is that time is neither a physical entity nor an abstraction, but that our awareness of time is based on perceptual processes and phenomenological experience, that temporality is fundamentally internal, although derived from responses to the external world of sensory experience. E uses the terms ‘time’ and ‘temporality’ interchangeably. It might have been helpful to assign them different roles, especially as E seems to vacillate in his argumentation between criticizing and/or espousing views put forward by those who have tried to fathom the ‘nature of time’ and those that have tried to fathom the ‘nature of the perception of time’ or the ‘nature of the experience of time’. In this context a distinction between the experience of temporality and time ‘out there’ (whatever it might be) is essential (see p. 8, where E writes: ‘our experience of time cannot be equated with an objectively real entity inhering in the world “out there”’—no it cannot because it is an experience). ‘The ultimate goal of this book is to establish the nature and structure of time, in essence to resolve the metaphysical problem’ (5). To do this E tackles the linguistic problem of time. By uncovering the structure of concepts of time (through a study of the various senses the lexeme time has acquired in English) E hopes to shed light on the structure of time itself—a rather big and perhaps confounded claim. E argues furthermore that ‘as language reflects conceptual structure in important ways, it accordingly represents a crucial window into the human conceptual system’ (5)—a rather circular argument. Like all cognitive linguists, E looks at meaning through the lenses of conceptualization, cognition, and ultimately embodiment, in this case neurologically based temporal and perceptual processes. Following Ronald Langacker, language is regarded as a symbolic process whereby a physical symbol is paired with a meaning element or concept. E is particularly interested in one subset of concepts, namely lexical concepts. Meaning and conceptualization are collapsed in this view. This approach normally overlooks the social dimension of ‘meaning’ (which might shed light on how this rather miraculous ‘pairing’ happens), but E later addresses this issue. Those who believe in the ‘primacy of pragmatics’ might want to argue that meaning does not exist—it happens in social interaction and in time. The...