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The article discusses the formal classification of natural sciences, which is based on several propositions: (a) natural sciences can be separated onto independent and dependent sciences based on the gnosiologic criterion and irreducibility criteria (principal and technical); (b) there are four independent sciences which form a hierarchy: physics ← chemistry ← terrestrial biology ← human psychology; (c) every independent science except for physics has already developed or will develop in the future a set of final paradigms formulated in the terms (...) of the science one step above it in the hierarchy; (d) some paradigms in physics will never become final; (e) each independent natural science has dependent sciences with paradigms already expressed in the terms of the respective independent sciences. Existing paradigms of independent natural sciences are listed and discussed with respect to the degree of their approach to the final state. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}. (shrink)

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We attempt to define the classical propositional logic by use of appropriate derivability conditions called Cn-definitions. The conditions characterize basic properties of propositional connectives.

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Many characterizations of definiteness in natural language have been given. However a number of them converge on a single idea involving uniqueness of applicability of a property. This paper will attempt to do two things. One is to try to unify some of these current views of definiteness, seeing them as drawing out Gricean conversational implicatures of the uniqueness concept, and the other is to try a more articulated approach to dealing with some recalcitrant counterexamples. I will focus primarily, but (...) not entirely, on definite descriptions in English. (shrink)

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Contextualism, Pragmatics and Definite Descriptions Very few philosophers and linguists doubt that definite descriptions have attributive uses and referential uses. The point of disagreement concerns whether the difference in uses is grounded on a difference in meaning. The Ambiguity Theory holds while the Implicature Theory denies that definite descriptions are ambiguous expressions, having an attributive meaning and a referential meaning. Contextualists haveattempted to steer between the Ambiguity Theory and the Implicature Theory. I claim that the early contextualist account (...) provided by Recanati and Bezuidehnout based on the idea that definite descriptions are semantically underdetermined and in need of a completion from the contextually available information through an optional top-down pragmatic process suffers from an explanatory gap. (shrink)

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What is the sense of the question “What is art?” It may seem that the only adequate answer will be the effort to define the notion of art, that is, the exclusive purpose of this question is the classification of art, encompassing all artifacts regarded as works of art and distinguishing them from those do not belong to art. The study points to the connection between our classification of artifacts and our evaluation and understanding of them. It also recalls reflections (...) on the subject “What is Art?”, which does not even attempt to define it. Their aim is different: to change our understanding, evaluation or explication of art. (shrink)

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Initiatives relying on artificial intelligence (AI) to deliver socially beneficial outcomes—AI for social good (AI4SG)—are on the rise. However, existing attempts to understand and foster AI4SG initiatives have so far been limited by the lack of normative analyses and a shortage of empirical evidence. In this Perspective, we address these limitations by providing adefinition of AI4SG and by advocating the use of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a benchmark for tracing the scope and spread of (...) AI4SG. We introduce a database of AI4SG projects gathered using this benchmark, and discuss several key insights, including the extent to which different SDGs are being addressed. This analysis makes possible the identification of pressing problems that, if left unaddressed, risk hampering the effectiveness of AI4SG initiatives. (shrink)

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The Buddhist technical term was first translated as ‘mindfulness’ by T.W. Rhys Davids in 1881. Since then various authors, including Rhys Davids, haveattempted definitions of what precisely is meant by mindfulness. Initially these were based on readings and interpretations of ancient Buddhist texts. Beginning in the 1950s some definitions of mindfulness became more informed by the actual practice of meditation. In particular, Nyanaponika'sdefinition appears to have had significant influence on thedefinition of mindfulness adopted by (...) those who developed MBSR and MBCT. Turning to the various aspects of mindfulness brought out in traditional Theravāda definitions, several of those highlighted are not initially apparent in the definitions current in the context of MBSR and MBCT. Moreover, the MBSR and MBCT notion of mindfulness as ‘non-judgmental’ needs careful consideration from a traditional Buddhist perspective. Nevertheless, the difference in emphasis apparent in the theoretical definitions of mindfulness may not be so significant in the actual clinical application of mindfulness techniques. (shrink)

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The age-old question “What is truth?” is not an unambiguous one. There are at least two different meanings. In one sense, it is a semantic question about the meaning of the word “truth” and/or a metaphysical question about the nature of the property of truth, that is, how truth can be defined in terms of other notions, if it is definable at all. In another sense, it is an epistemological question about the criterion or test of truth, that is, how (...) we can recognize or accept (empirical) propositions as true. Ayer, in Language, Truth and Logic (LTL) and some other articles, tried to convince us that when we attempt to elucidate a theory of truth, we are only engaging in the epistemological project of finding the criterion of truth. This anti-semantical and anti-metaphysical view is based on Ayer’s (radical) deflationism about truth. In this chapter, I will argue that since Ayer did not accept that the criterion of truth is intimately related to the concept of truth, he can be seen as a deflationist about the nature of truth and as an advocate of a certain (Schlickian) kind of correspondence conception about the criterion of truth. His position would not be tenable if he had maintained what some of his contemporaries accepted, namely that there is a close connection between the two truth-theoretical tasks: the definitional and the criterial one. (shrink)

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Adefinition of art attempts to spell out what the word “art” means. In everyday life, we sometimes debate whether something qualifies as art: Can video games be considered artworks? Should my 6-year-old painting belong to the same category as Wallis’ Hold House Port Mear Square Island (see picture)? Is the flamboyant Christmas tree at the mall fundamentally different from a Louvre sculpture? Is a banana taped to a wall really art? Definitions of art in analytic philosophy typically answer (...) these questions by proposing necessary and sufficient conditions for an entity x to fall under the category of art. -/- Defining art is distinct from the ontological question of what kind of entities artworks are (for example, material objects, mental entities, abstractions, universals…). We do not, for example, need to know whether a novel and a sculpture have a distinct ontological status to decide whether they can be called “artworks.” -/- Definitions of art can be classified into six families. (1) classical views hold that all artworks share certain characteristics that are recognizable within the works themselves (that is, internal properties), such as imitating nature (mimesis), representing and arousing emotions (expressivism), or having a notable form (formalism). A modified version of this last option is enjoying a revival in 21st century philosophy, where art is said (2) to have been produced with the aim of instantiating aesthetic properties (functionalism). Classical definitions initially met with negative reactions, so much so that in the mid-twentieth century, some philosophers advocated (3) skepticism about the possibility of defining art while others critiqued the bias of the current definitions. Taking up the challenge laid out by theses critics, (4) a fourth family of approaches defines art in terms of the relations that artworks enjoy with certain institutions (institutionalism) or historical practices (historicism). (5) A fifth family of approaches proposes to analyze art by focusing on the specific art forms—music, cinema, painting, and so one—rather than on art in general (determinable-determinate definitions). (6) A last family claims that “art” requires to be defined by a disjunctive list of traits, with a few borrowed from classical and relational approaches (disjunctivism). (shrink)

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In the last thirty years, work in analytic philosophy of art has flourished, and it has given rise to considerably controversy. Stephen Davies describes and analyzes thedefinition of art as it has been discussed in Anglo-American philosophy during this period and, in the process, introduces his own perspective on ways in which we should reorient our thinking. Davies conceives of the debate as revealing two basic, conflicting approaches--the functional and the procedural--to the questions of whether art can be (...) defined, and if so, how. As the author sees it, the functionalist believes that an object is a work of art only if it performs a particular function (usually, that of providing a rewarding aesthetic experience). By contrast the proceduralist believes that something is an artwork only if it has been created according to certain rules and procedures. Davies attempts to demonstrate the fruitfulness of viewing the debate in terms of this framework, and he develops new arguments against both points of view--although he is more critical of functional than of procedural definitions. Because it has generated so much of the recent literature, Davies starts his analysis with a discussion of Morris Weitz's germinal paper, "The Role of Theory in Aesthetics." He goes on to examine other important works by Arthur Danto, George Dickie, and Ben Tilghman and develops in his critiques original arguments on such matters of the artificiality of artworks and the relevance of artists' intentions. (shrink)

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The aim of this paper is to find a workable and adequate related definitions of logical (anti-)psychologism in history, thereby paving the way for further discussions on their pros and cons. The first part of the essay explains why the search for such definitions is significant. The subsequent section critically analyzes previous attempts at defining the concepts and proposes new definitions based on these insights. The final part evaluates the practical feasibility of the proposed definitions, shedding some light on their (...) potential applications and limitations. (shrink)

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This article attempts to explore ancient Chinese philosophical thought by analyzing how pioneering Chinese thinkers made judgments and inferences, and compares it to ancient Greek philosophy. It first addresses the starting-point and the object of cognition in Chinese ancient philosophy, then analyses how early thinkers construeddefinition and proposition, and finally discusses how they made inferences on the basis ofdefinition and proposition. It points out that categorization is an important methodology in ancient Chinese philosophy, and that rectification (...) of names and the doctrine of the mean are key criteria in making judgments. (shrink)

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Aristotle presents what seem to be two different definitions of color, in De anima and in De sensu, respectively. The former seems more intelligible, while the latter has been largely ignored, not only because the work in which it is found receives little scholarly attention but because thisdefinition is more cryptic. I present an overview of the puzzles surrounding this seconddefinition and develop the explanation presented by Thomas Aquinas. To illuminate this explanation I point out similarities (...) and differences between it and that provided by one of the very few modern attempts at interpretation. (shrink)

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Extensive and diverse conceptual work towards developing adefinition of ‘mental disorder’ was motivated by the declassification of homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual in 1973. This highly politicised event was understood as a call for psychiatry to provide assurances against further misclassification on the basis of discrimination or socio-political deviance. Today, if adefinition of mental disorder fails to exclude homosexuality, then it fails to provide this safeguard against potential abuses and therefore fails to do an (...) important part of the work it was intended to do. We argue that fact-based definitions of mental disorder, relying on scientific theory, fail to offer a robustdefinition of mental disorder that excludes homosexuality. Definitions of mental disorder based on values do not fare better: these definitions are silent on questions about the diagnostic status of individuals in oppressive societies and over-inclusive of mental or behavioural states that happen to be negatively valued in the individual's social context. We consider the latestdefinition proposed for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual-5 in light of these observations. We argue thatdefinition fails to improve on these earlier deficiencies. Its inclusion in the manual may offer false reassurance against repetition of past misclassifications. We conclude with a provocation that if candidate definitions of mental disorder are unable to exclude homosexuality, it might perhaps be preferable not to attempt adefinition at all. (shrink)

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Machery et al. presented data suggesting the existence of cross-cultural variation in judgments about the reference of proper names. In this paper, we examine a previously overlooked confound in the subsequent studies that attempt to replicate the results of Machery et al. using East Asian languages. Machery et al. and Sytsma et al. claim that they have successfully replicated the original finding with probes written in Chinese and Japanese, respectively. These studies, however, crucially rely on uses of articleless, ‘bare noun (...) phrases’ in Chinese and Japanese, which according to the linguistic literature are known to be multiply ambiguous. We argue that it becomes questionable whether the extant studies using East Asian languages revealed genuine cross-cultural variation when the probes are reevaluated based on a proper linguistic understanding of Chinese and Japanese bare noun phrases and English definite descriptions. We also present two experiments on native Japanese speakers that controlled the use of ambiguous bare noun phrases, the results of which suggest that the judgments of Japanese speakers concerning the reference of proper names may not diverge from those of English speakers. (shrink)

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In this essay, I attempt to define the 'ethnocategory' mushi in Japanese culture, through a semantic analysis of the Chinese characters bearing the radical "mushi," and fieldwork research in rural Japan. The research offers criteria for an animal's inclusion in the category, reveals the differences in people's perception of mushi according to age and gender, and elicits a structure of the category as a series of concentric circles around a semantic core. The richness and complexity of the findings provide insight (...) into Japanese attitudes towards animals and nature. (shrink)

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In a previous article, Iattempted to assess the likely impact of the most prominent versions of the therapeutic misconception (TM) on research subjects’ informed consent. I concluded that the TM is not nearly as significant a concern as is commonly thought, and that focusing on it is more likely to undermine than promote research subjects’ informed consent.A recent commentary rejects these conclusions, as least as they pertain to the “consensus”definition of the TM. The authors of the (...) commentary argue that work on the TM remains central to ensuring the appropriateness of research subjects’ consent and, by implication, the ethical acceptability of clinical research.The present work evaluates the arguments offered in support of these claims. This analysis reveals that the authors offer few substantive responses to my arguments, and the responses they do offer fail to undermine my prior conclusions. Furthermore, consideration of an additional issue—the emergence of learning healthcare systems—suggests that the TM is likely to be even less significant in the future, hence, focusing on it may be even more problematic than I argued previously. (shrink)

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Heidegger’s 1927 lecture course, The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, includes an examination of the Kantian conception of being as it appears within the first Critique’s refutation of the ontological proof of God’s existence. There, Heidegger maintains that the Kantiandefinition of being as position is beset with an ambiguity that Kant could not resolve, as such a resolution would require the repudiation of the traditional ontology of the subject that Kant presupposes. Heidegger then claims that his own ontology of (...) Dasein, articulated in Being and Time, addresses the ambiguity in the Kantian position, and thus in Kantian being, through a phenomenology of the intentio/intentum relation—an analysis in which Heidegger attempts to move beyond the traditional ontology. Heidegger’s assessment of Kant, here, is characteristic of Heideggerian Kant-interpretation. That is, Heidegger typically views Kant as having pushed the traditional ontology to its limits, and then as having retreated from the radical implications of his own thought, due to his allegiance to that ontology. And in the context of his Kant-interpretations, Heidegger characterizes his own philosophical position as resulting from the pursuit of these radical implications of Kantian thought. (shrink)

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In this paper I will try to provide some arguments against a broaddefinition of “empathy”. Firstly, I will deal with attempts to define empathy as an umbrella concept. Then, I will try to point out the four main elements which contribute to the confusion that researchers in both the social and political as well as the scientific and philosophical domains face when dealing with empathy. In order to resolve this confusion, I suggest applying David Marr’s distinction to the (...) field of empathy. Instead of providing an umbrelladefinition for empathy, which tries to account for all the data coming from different disciplines, I believe understanding that there are different levels of explanations and that different disciplines can contribute to each of them will provide a more detailed and less confuseddefinition of empathy. (shrink)

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There have through history been many attempts to define 'life' but there is no generally accepteddefinition of 'life' at this date. As a result, some have come to believe that defining 'life' is not a fruitful endeavour. This seems to be a minority view, however, since the quest to find or create adefinition of 'life' is as active as ever.

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A PROPOSAL FOR DEFINING DISEASE, OFFERED BY HAROLD MERSKEY, M. D., IS EXAMINED. REASONS FOR TOLERATING A LOGICALLY RELAXED SENSE OFDEFINITION ARE PUT FORWARD. MERSKEY'S OWN PROPOSAL IS BASED ON A CANVASS OF A LARGE NUMBER OF CURRENT ATTEMPTS ATDEFINITION.

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I will give a broad overview of what has become the standard paradigm in cosmology. I will describe the relational notion of time that is often used in cosmological calculations and discuss how the local nature of Einstein's equations allows us to translate this notion into statements about `initial' data. Classically this relates our localdefinition of time to a quasi-local region of a particular spatial slice, however incorporating quantum theory comes at the expense of losing this locality entirely. (...) This occurs due to the presence of two, apparently distinct, issues: Seemingly classical issues to do with the infinite spatial volume of the universe and Quantum field theory issues, which revolve around trying to apply renormalization in cosmology. Following the ‘cosmological principle’ - an extension of the ‘Copernicus principle’ - that physics at every point in our universe should look the same, we are lead to the modern view of cosmology. This procedure is reasonably well understood for an exactly homogeneous universe, however the inclusions of small perturbations over this homogeneity leads to many interpretational/ conceptual difficulties. For example, in an infinite universe perturbations can be arbitrarily close to homogeneous. To any observer, such a perturbation would appear to be a simple rescaling of the homogenous background and hence, physically, would not be considered an inhomogeneous perturbation at all. However, any attempt to choose the physically relevant scale at which perturbations should be considered homogeneous will break the cosmological principle i.e. it will make the resulting physics observer dependent. It amounts to `putting the perturbations in a box' and a delicate practical issue is that the universe is not static, hence the scale of the box will be time dependent. Thus what appears ‘physically homogeneous’ to an observer at one time will not appear so at another. This issue is brought to the forefront by considering the canonical version of the theory. The phase space formulation of General Relativity, just as for any other theory, contains the shadow of the underlying quantum theory. This means that, although the formulation is still classical, many of the subtleties that are present in the quantum theory are already apparent. In the cosmological context the infinite spatial volume renders almost all expressions formal or ill-defined. In order to proceed, we must restrict our attention to a cosmology that has some finite spatial extent, on which our relational notion of time is everywhere definable. In particular, this would constrain the permissible data outside our `observable universe'. This difficulty is an IR or large scale issues in cosmology, however in addition there are UV or short scale problems that need to be tackled. There are the usual problems of renormalization, which are further complicated by the fact that the universe is not static. In the cosmological setting this leads to new IR problems which again prevent one from taking the spatial extent of the universe to infinity. The physical relevance of this problem, the consequence for defining a time variable, and the distinction of homogeneous and inhomogeneous IR issues will be discussed. (shrink)

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The attempt to define life has gained new momentum in the wake of novel fields such as synthetic biology, astrobiology, and artificial life. In a series of articles, Cleland, Chyba, and Machery claim that definitions of life seek to provide necessary and sufficient conditions for applying the concept of life—something that such definitions cannot, and should not do. We argue that this criticism is largely unwarranted. Cleland, Chyba, and Machery approach definitions of life as classifying devices, thereby neglecting their other (...) epistemic roles. We identify within the discussions of the nature and origin of life three other types of definitions: theoretical, transdisciplinary, and diagnostic definitions. The primary aim of these definitions is not to distinguish life from nonlife, although they can also be used for classificatory purposes. We focus on the definitions of life within the budding field of astrobiology, paying particular attention to transdisciplinary definitions, and diagnostic definitions in the search for biosignatures from other planets. (shrink)

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Any attempt to construct a philosophy of Value must presuppose some general understanding of what Value is. And so it might seem natural to begin with a precisedefinition of the concept we are about to investigate. What, we might ask ourselves, is the characteristic peculiar to all those situations in the description of which we are accustomed to use the word “value” or its cognate terms, and distinguishing them as a class from all those situations to which we (...) do not apply the word? Proceeding empirically in this way, from an inspection of the “field of application” of the word “value” we might reasonably hope to discover a “highest common factor” of all the data, which would be the requireddefinition of the concept “Value.” But we should be met at the outset by radical differences of opinion about the scope of the relevant data. (shrink)

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Most modern definitions of art fail to successfully address the issue of the ever-changing nature of art, and rarely even attempt to provide an account that would be valid in more than just the modern Western context. This article develops a new theory that preserves the advantages of its predecessors, solves or avoids their problems, and has a scope wide enough to account for art of different times and cultures. It argues that an object is art in a given context (...) iff some person culturally competent in this context have afforded it the status of a candidate for appreciation for reasons considered good in this context. This weakly institutional view is supplemented by auxiliary definitions explaining the notions of cultural contexts, competence, and good reasons for affording the status. The relativisation to contexts brings increased explanatory power and scope, and the ability to account for the diversity of art. (shrink)

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Thedefinition of love given by Descartes in the Passions of the Soul has never stopped puzzling commentators. If the first Cartesian textbooks discreetly evoke or even fail to discuss Descartes’s account of love, Spinoza harshly criticizes it, pointing out that it is ‘on all hands admitted to be very obscure’. More recently several scholars have noticed the puzzling character of the articles of the Passions of the Soul on love and hate. In this paper, I would like to (...) propose a reassessment of thedefinition of love provided by the Passions of the Soul and the Letters to Elisabeth and Chanut. By tracing back Descartes’s scholastic sources, I will demonstrate how Descartes builds up hisdefinition of love by displacing or subverting the meaning of several major elements of the thomistic vulgata on love. Hence, a significant part of the obscurity of thedefinition given by the Passions of the Soul possibly finds its ultimate rationale in this attempt to recover some traditional questions of the scholastic debate on love, while advancing new answers to them. (shrink)

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Despite numerous and increasing attempts to define what life is, there is no consensus on necessary and sufficient conditions for life. Accordingly, some scholars have questioned the value of definitions of life and encouraged scientists and philosophers alike to discard the project. As an alternative to this pessimistic conclusion, we argue that critically rethinking the nature and uses of definitions can provide new insights into the epistemic roles of definitions of life for different research practices. This paper examines the possible (...) contributions of definitions of life in scientific domains where such definitions are used most (e.g., Synthetic Biology, Origins of Life, Alife, and Astrobiology). Rather than as classificatory tools for demarcation of natural kinds, we highlight the pragmatic utility of what we call operational definitions that serve as theoretical and epistemic tools in scientific practice. In particular, we examine contexts where definitions integrate criteria for life into theoretical models that involve or enable observable operations. We show how these definitions of life play important roles in influencing research agendas and evaluating results, and we argue that to discard the project of defining life is neither sufficiently motivated, nor possible without dismissing important theoretical and practical research. (shrink)

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The originaldefinition of a technical term, the paper argues, should not be altered without a good reason. This notion is applied to the conception of illocutionary acts suggested by Alston, which markedly differs from the conception originally introduced by John L. Austin. Alston appears to agree with the argument; at least, he does attempt to justify his re-definition. The paper argues, however, that the reasons he gives fail.

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An overview of attempts to define music in the Western philosophical tradition.

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Globalisation may concern many different issues, among others, the increase in migration that creates opportunities for all. There should be no doubt that globalisation can bring both positive and negative effects to workers. It can be seen as new opportunities for people, because they can travel, work, learn and live in different countries. Simultaneously however it can be perceived as synonymous to job losses, social injustice, or low environmental, health, and privacy standards. As a result of globalisation, the world is (...) becoming more and more complex and the economic importance of state borders is reduced. It should therefore not raise doubts, that global problems require the capacity to agree on coordinated global responses and mechanisms on the basis of international cooperation. Among the basic international organisations which provide solutions for workers who have decided to look for a job in another country, one can generally mention the International Labour Organisation, the Council of Europe, and the European Union. There is quite a large number of legal acts created in the framework of those organisations, and so we should ask a question if in such a situation we should also try to understand some legal concepts; in our case concepts connected with taking up employment, in a similar way. Even if the answer is positive, another question comes to mind – is it possible to have such definitions in a global world? It is thus not enough to provide legal regulations concerning worker’s rights and obligations if we do not know who exactly should be treated like a worker. The following article will try to answer those questions and simultaneously try to show that globalisation may affect the way certain terms should be understood. (shrink)

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The aim of this paper is to discuss an idea that referentially used definite descriptions are rigid designators or, at least, „weakly” rigid designators in some sense of this term. In the first part, the views of Nathan Salmon, Howard Wettstein and Michael Devitt are presented. The author observes that none of these positions provides a conclusive argument in the discussion on the issue in question. In the second part, it is argued that referentially used descriptions are in some sense (...) rigid. The main argument appeals to some observations concerning the scope ambiguity of modal constructions in which definite descriptions are embedded, and applies in an essential way Kripke’s possible worlds-semantics. In particular, the author attempts to demonstrate that in a „de dicto” modal construction, a referential description is rigid in a sense that it designates the same object in all „accessible” worlds. Moreover, he observes that his conclusion can be accepted by someone who is a proponent of a unified semantic analysis of definite descriptions, since his whole argumentation is based on the unified quantificational treatment of descriptions. (shrink)

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In this article, an anthropologicaldefinition of literature isattempted. Since all communities seem to have some kind of literature (including its simple forms: myth, folktale, fable, proverb, and song), literature is claimed to be a human universal. Hence, literary discourse should be added to the four basic discourses that Habermas has pointed out and discussed; namely, theoretical, practical, historical, and technical discourses. Five characteristics of literary discourse are pointed out here: fictionality, poeticity, inquisitoriality, poetic licence, and contemplation. (...) It is not claimed that every text that is classified as literary necessarily contains all five features, but a vast majority of them do. Finally, it is argued that literary discourse is special because it redefines Habermas' four so-called ‘universal-pragmatic validity’ claims: understandability, truth, normative rightness, and sincerity. These claims are not altogether suspended, but they are given new meanings and attenuated in literary discourse. (shrink)

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Aesthetic definitions of art face difficulties in dealing with art that is nonaesthetic. This has led some to suggest that if aesthetic theories of art are to apply to all art, then they must be disjunctive. In such a case, something would be art if and only if it either satisfied certain aesthetic criteria, or satisfied other, nonaesthetic, criteria.Nick Zangwill offers the Aesthetic Creation Theory. He considers ways that his theory could account for nonaesthetic art, and ultimately adopts a disjunctive (...) theory that makes use of the notion of second-order art—art that gains art status by referring to first-order art that satisfies the Aesthetic Creation Theory’s conditions.I will examine Zangwill’s theory and his response to the problem of nonaesthetic art with the aim of showing that the idea of second-order art may be unnecessary. There is hope for a non-disjunctive account of the nature of art, I claim, if we reconsider the attempts to deal with nonaesthetic art that Zangwill himself rejects. (shrink)

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Some version of the will theory and the interest theory of rights attempt to provide a precise and normatively neutraldefinition of a right that would be useful in substantive normative debates and that corresponds reasonably well with usage in our political and legal culture. But there is an irresolvable tension in this project. Consistent application of adefinition of a right cannot plausible track ordinary usage without invoking underlying normative propositions about the justifications for granting rights. Thus, (...) definitional approaches to rights are too demanding to serve either the descriptive purpose of providing a neutral vocabulary or the normative purpose of usefully discussing the rights we ought to have. For descriptive purposes, it would be better to retreat, if necessary, to the Hohfeldian idea that a right is nothing more than the correlate of a duty; for normative purposes, it would be better to address directly the political justification for characterizing a particular legal as creating a right. (shrink)

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Traditional monist theories of art fail to account for the diversity of objects that intuitively strike many as belonging to the category art. Some today argue that the solution to this problem requires the adoption of some version of pluralism to account for the diversity of art. We examine one recent attempt, which holds that the correct account of art must recognize the plurality of concepts of art. However, we criticize this account of concept pluralism as being unable to offer (...) an explanation of why some concept is an art concept. Instead, many of the disagreements over thedefinition of art could be reconciled by recognizing that works of art can be valued in a plurality of ways. By recognizing a plurality of values for art, we claim further that thedefinition of art becomes a non-issue. (shrink)

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The conclusion of this chapter is that higher-order vagueness is universal: no sentence whatsoever is definitely true, definitely definitely true, definitely definitely definitely true, and so on ad infinitum. The argument, of which there are several versions, turns on the existence of Sorites sequences of possible worlds connecting the actual world to possible worlds where a given sentence is used in such a way that its meaning is very different. The chapter attempts to be neutral between competing accounts of the (...) nature of vagueness and definiteness. (shrink)

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In psychiatry, many scientists desire to move from a classification system based on symptoms toward a system based on biological causes. The idea is that psychiatric diseases should be redefined such that each disease would be associated with specific biological causes. This desire is intelligible because causal disease models often facilitate understanding and identification of new ways to intervene in disease processes. In its attempt to move from syndromal to specific etiological definitions, psychiatry follows the trend of general medicine.Current psychiatric...

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This article argues that the second part of the Parmenides (137-166) consists not only of the well-known logical structure that has been widely studied but also of a great variety of definitions of forms. My aim is to show how these definitions depend on a specific group of closely connected primary forms (i.e., same, different, part, whole). The definitions that Parmenides provides help Socrates overcome his failure in attempting to define forms in the first part of the dialogue.

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In Plato’s early dialogues, Socrates frequently asks questions of the form “What is X?” seeking definitions of the substitution instances of X (e.g., Justice, Piety, and Courage). In attempting to elucidate Socraticdefinition, a number of interpreters have invoked a distinction between real and nominaldefinition (the distinction between thedefinition of a thing and thedefinition of a word. In using that distinction, several interpreters have pointed out that, when Socrates asked his “What is X” (...) question (e.g., “What is Justice?”), he was not seeking a nominaldefinition (adefinition of the word ‘διχαιοσύνή’), but rather a realdefinition (adefinition of the thing, Justice). My purpose in this paper is to argue that the preceding interpretation of Socratic thought is mistaken, i.e., I shall argue that there is no real/nominal distinction to be found in the Socratic dialogues. (shrink)

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It is often thought that materialism about themind can be clarified using the concept of supervenience. But there is a difficulty. Amaterialist should admit the possibility ofghosts and thus should allow that a world mightduplicate the physical character of our worldand enjoy, in addition, immaterial beings withmental properties. So materialists can't claimthat every world that is physicallyindistinguishable from our world is alsomentally indistinguishable; and this is wellknown. What is less understood are thedifferent ways that immaterial add-ons can maketrouble for supervenience-theoreticformulations (...) of materialism. In this paper, Ishall present a problematic kind of add-on thathas been ignored and look at threesupervenience-theoretic attempts to formulatematerialism in that light. (shrink)

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The paper considers the problem of defining concepts within formal ontologies. A number of distinct modes ofdefinition are identified, which represent alternative viewpoints on the classification of objects. The nature of these modes is examined and interactions and correlations between them are considered. This analysis is used to characterise a number of key problems that confront the attempt to analyse the meanings of natural language concepts by means of a precise formal ontology. Some proposals are made as to (...) how these problems might be overcome. It is argued that specification of precise formal semantics requires clear separation between aspects of meaning that are based on different modes of classification. But, to provide an adequate ontological framework to describe the semantics of natural language terms, additional formal apparatus is required to synthesise their meaning by combining the different modes. This meta-level ontological formalism must articulate the interactions between the different modes. (shrink)

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The most recent attempt to explain Aristotle's use of in Poetics 13 is that of T. C. W. Stinton , 221–54). Stinton insists that must not be restricted to any onedefinition, but should be understood to include a ‘range of applications’ embracing both moral error and ‘ignorance of fact’.

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The author defends a combination of Strawson’s account of definite descriptions as devices of singular reference par excellence with the Russellian truth-evaluation of utterances of sentences with descriptions. The complex Russellian proposition is, according to the author’s view, introduced by such utterances into communication as a by-product of the instrumental side of an attempt to make a singular statement. This, precisely like the instrumental aspects of similar attempts exploiting names or demonstratives has to be reflected by analysis but should not (...) be confused with the communicative function of utterances. The success of all these attempts depends on the fulfilment of empirical conditions of various types, given by semantics of descriptions, names or demonstratives . But their communicative function does not consist in claiming that these conditions are fulfilled.The author agrees with Strawson that the first two conjuncts of the complex Russellian proposition are introduced into communication as presuppositions: but argues in favour of defining presupposition in normative, rather the intentional terms. (shrink)

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The contemporary Platonists in the philosophy of mathematics argue that mathematical objects exist. One of the arguments by which they support this standpoint is the so-called Enhanced Indispensability Argument (EIA). This paper aims at pointing out the difficulties inherent to the EIA. The first is contained in the vague formulation of the Argument, which is the reason why not even an approximate scope of the set objects whose existence is stated by the Argument can be established. The second problem is (...) reflected in the vagueness of the very term indispensability, which is essential to the Argument. The paper will remind of a recentdefinition of the concept of indispensability of a mathematical object, reveal its deficiency and propose an improvement of thisdefinition. Following this, we will deal with one of the consequences of the arbitrary employment of the concept of indispensability of a mathematical theory. We will propose adefinition of this concept as well, in accordance with the common intuition about it. Eventually, on the basis of these two definitions, the paper will describe the relation between these two concepts, in the attempt to clarify the conceptual apparatus of the EIA. (shrink)

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The Stoa might be not the first philosophical school that comes to mind when considering the most important ancient contributions to aesthetics, yet multiple extant fragments show that the Stoics had a non-marginal theoretical interest in aesthetic properties. Probably the most important piece of evidence for the Stoic attempts to theorize beauty is thedefinition of beauty as summetria of parts with each other and with the whole. In the first half of this article, I present and analyse the (...) main evidence for thisdefinition. Then I discuss Plotinus' critique of thedefinition and argue that it contains some pertinent remarks that, with support of additional evidence, lead to the conclusion that the Stoics conceptualized aesthetic properties as supervening on functional composition. (shrink)

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Psychiatry today is mainly practised within a curative framework. However, many mental disorders are persistent and negatively affect quality of life as well as life expectancy. This tension between treatment goals and the actual illness trajectory has evoked a growing academic interest in ‘palliative psychiatry’, namely the application of a palliative care approach in patients with severe persistent mental illness. Recently, Trachsel et al presented a workingdefinition of palliative psychiatry. This first official attempt to capture the concept is (...) based on WHO’s widely accepteddefinition of palliative care but modified and limited to include only severe persistent psychiatric illness. While this is a welcome step in the discussion on palliative care approaches in psychiatry, it also opens up for new questions. One of the most evident is whether psychiatry actually needs its owndefinition of palliative care or, put differently, whether there is something about mental disorders that differs so radically from other medical conditions that it calls for a separatedefinition. We acknowledge the need to discuss the goals of psychiatric care in patients with severe persistent psychiatric illness. However, we question whether a separatedefinition of palliative care exclusive to psychiatry is the right way to go. In this paper, we discuss why. (shrink)

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