60 resultados para Ontological proof

em Helda - Digital Repository of University of Helsinki


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One of the most fundamental questions in the philosophy of mathematics concerns the relation between truth and formal proof. The position according to which the two concepts are the same is called deflationism, and the opposing viewpoint substantialism. In an important result of mathematical logic, Kurt Gödel proved in his first incompleteness theorem that all consistent formal systems containing arithmetic include sentences that can neither be proved nor disproved within that system. However, such undecidable Gödel sentences can be established to be true once we expand the formal system with Alfred Tarski s semantical theory of truth, as shown by Stewart Shapiro and Jeffrey Ketland in their semantical arguments for the substantiality of truth. According to them, in Gödel sentences we have an explicit case of true but unprovable sentences, and hence deflationism is refuted. Against that, Neil Tennant has shown that instead of Tarskian truth we can expand the formal system with a soundness principle, according to which all provable sentences are assertable, and the assertability of Gödel sentences follows. This way, the relevant question is not whether we can establish the truth of Gödel sentences, but whether Tarskian truth is a more plausible expansion than a soundness principle. In this work I will argue that this problem is best approached once we think of mathematics as the full human phenomenon, and not just consisting of formal systems. When pre-formal mathematical thinking is included in our account, we see that Tarskian truth is in fact not an expansion at all. I claim that what proof is to formal mathematics, truth is to pre-formal thinking, and the Tarskian account of semantical truth mirrors this relation accurately. However, the introduction of pre-formal mathematics is vulnerable to the deflationist counterargument that while existing in practice, pre-formal thinking could still be philosophically superfluous if it does not refer to anything objective. Against this, I argue that all truly deflationist philosophical theories lead to arbitrariness of mathematics. In all other philosophical accounts of mathematics there is room for a reference of the pre-formal mathematics, and the expansion of Tarkian truth can be made naturally. Hence, if we reject the arbitrariness of mathematics, I argue in this work, we must accept the substantiality of truth. Related subjects such as neo-Fregeanism will also be covered, and shown not to change the need for Tarskian truth. The only remaining route for the deflationist is to change the underlying logic so that our formal languages can include their own truth predicates, which Tarski showed to be impossible for classical first-order languages. With such logics we would have no need to expand the formal systems, and the above argument would fail. From the alternative approaches, in this work I focus mostly on the Independence Friendly (IF) logic of Jaakko Hintikka and Gabriel Sandu. Hintikka has claimed that an IF language can include its own adequate truth predicate. I argue that while this is indeed the case, we cannot recognize the truth predicate as such within the same IF language, and the need for Tarskian truth remains. In addition to IF logic, also second-order logic and Saul Kripke s approach using Kleenean logic will be shown to fail in a similar fashion.

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After Gödel's incompleteness theorems and the collapse of Hilbert's programme Gerhard Gentzen continued the quest for consistency proofs of Peano arithmetic. He considered a finitistic or constructive proof still possible and necessary for the foundations of mathematics. For a proof to be meaningful, the principles relied on should be considered more reliable than the doubtful elements of the theory concerned. He worked out a total of four proofs between 1934 and 1939. This thesis examines the consistency proofs for arithmetic by Gentzen from different angles. The consistency of Heyting arithmetic is shown both in a sequent calculus notation and in natural deduction. The former proof includes a cut elimination theorem for the calculus and a syntactical study of the purely arithmetical part of the system. The latter consistency proof in standard natural deduction has been an open problem since the publication of Gentzen's proofs. The solution to this problem for an intuitionistic calculus is based on a normalization proof by Howard. The proof is performed in the manner of Gentzen, by giving a reduction procedure for derivations of falsity. In contrast to Gentzen's proof, the procedure contains a vector assignment. The reduction reduces the first component of the vector and this component can be interpreted as an ordinal less than epsilon_0, thus ordering the derivations by complexity and proving termination of the process.

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The history of the Leningrad underground is one of the key themes of late socialism. Samizdat, "black humour", religious syncretism, dissidence, apolitical bohemianism, the pathos of freedom of individuality and the mechanics of literature are closely interlinked with the cultural mythology of this passed epoch. Describing conceptions that, when taken together, form the contemporary understanding of unofficial culture, the author creates a historical portrait of this environment. Amongst the central figures here, there are well-known writers (Bitov, Brodsky, Dovlatov, Khvostenko, Krivulin) and literary activists who still await recognition. The analysis of works, many of which were only distributed in typewritten publications in the 1960s-1980s, gives a preliminary definition of the key factors that united the authors of the unofficial community. The book begins with a critique of the identification of the Soviet underground with political dissidence or with a society living in autonomous independence with regard to the state. Describing the historical development of the various names for this environment (the underground, samizdat, unofficial culture, podpolie and others), the author follows the genesis of the community from its appearance, in the years of "the Thaw", through to perestroika, when it dissolved. Taking the history of the publication of Bitov's "The Pushkin House" as an example, the concept of the unofficial is interpreted as a risky interaction with the authorities. Unofficial culture is then viewed as a late Soviet reflection of the Western underground in the 1950s-1960s. Unlike the radical-utopian-anarchistic source, it proclaimed a liberalist and democratic ideology in the context of the destruction of the socialist utopia. The historical portrait of the community is built up from the perceptions of its members regarding literature practice and rhetorical approaches, with the aid of which these perceptions are expressed. Taking typewritten publications as source material, four main representations are given: privacy, deviancy, criticism and irrationality. An understanding of literature as a private affair, neo-avant-garde deviancy in social and literary behaviour and the pathos of the critical relationship with officialdom and irrational message of literary work, comprise the basis for the worldview of unofficial authors, as well as the poetic system, genre preferences and dictums. An analysis of irrationality, based on the texts of Khvostenko and Bogdanov, leads to a review of the cultural mythologies that were crucial to the unofficial conception of the absurd. Absurd is an homonym. It contains ideas that are important for the worldview of unofficial authors and the poetics of their works. The irrationality of the Soviet order is reflected in the documentary nature of the satirical prose of Dovlatov. The existential absurd of Camus is perceived here as the pointlessness of social realities and the ontological alienation of man, while existentialist practices for consciousness in the "atmosphere of absurd" remain bracketed off. The third homonym of absurd - the conception of reality as an illusion - is a clear demonstration of religious syncretism, where neo-Christian ideas are interweaved with a modernized version of Hinduism, as taken from Rolland s books on Ramakrishna and Vivekananda. The unofficial community was influenced by the ideology of westernization. Even "the East" arrived here via French retellings and accounts. As a whole, unofficial Leningrad culture can be understood as a neo-modernist phenomenon which, unlike the western neo-modernism of the 1940s and 1950s, arose in the years of the Thaw and ended its existence in the mid-1980s.

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Title of the Master's thesis: Análisis de la preposición hacia y establecimiento de sus equivalentes en finés (trans. Analysis of the Spanish preposition hacia and the finding of its equivalents in Finnish) Abstracts: The aim of this Master thesis is to provide a detailed analysis of the Spanish preposition hacia from a cognitive perspective and to establish its equivalents in Finnish language. In this sense, my purpose is to demonstrate the suitability of both cognitive perspectives and Contrastive Linguistics for semantic analysis. This thesis is divided into five chapters. The first chapter includes a presentation and a critical review of the monolingual lexical processing and semantic analysis of the Spanish preposition hacia in major reference works. Through this chapter it is possible to see both the inadequacies and omissions that are present in all the given definitions. In this sense, this chapter shows that these problems are not but the upper stage of an ontological (and therefore methodological) problem in the treatment of prepositions. The second chapter covers the presentation of the methodological and theoretical perspective adopted for this thesis for the monolingual analysis and definition of the Spanish preposition hacia, following mainly the guidelines established by G. Lakoff (1987) and R. Langacker (2008) in his Cognitive grammar. Taken together, and within the same paradigm, recent analytical and methodological contributions are discussed critically for the treatment of polysemy in language (cf. Tyler ja Evans 2003). In the third chapter, and in accordance with the requirements regarding the use of empirical data from corpora, is my aim to set out a monolingual original analysis of the Spanish preposition hacia in observance of the principles and the methodology spelled out in the second chapter. The main objective of this chapter is to build a full fledged semantic representation of the polysemy of this preposition in order to understand and articulate its meanings with Finnish language (and other possible languages). The fourth chapter, in accordance with the results of chapter 3, examines and describes and establishes the corresponding equivalents in Finnish for this preposition. The results obtained in this chapter are also contrasted with the current bilingual lexicographical definitions found in the most important dictionaries and grammars. Finally, in the fifth chapter of this thesis, the results of this work are discussed critically. In this way, some observations are given regarding both the ontological and theoretical assumptions as well regarding the methodological perspective adopted. I also present some notes for the construction of a general methodology for the semantic analysis of Spanish prepositions to be carried out in further investigations. El objetivo de este trabajo, que caracterizamos como una tarea de carácter comparativo-analítico, es brindar un análisis detallado de la preposición castellana hacia desde una perspectiva cognitiva en tanto y a través del establecimiento de sus equivalentes en finés. Se procura, de esta forma, demostrar la adecuación de una perspectiva cognitiva tanto para el examen como para el establecimiento y articulación de la serie de equivalentes que una partícula, en nuestro caso una preposición, encuentra en otra lengua. De esta forma, y frente a definiciones canónicas que advierten sobre la imposibilidad de una caracterización acabada del conjunto de usos de una preposición, se observa como posible, a través de la aplicación de una metodología teórica-analítica adecuada, la construcción de una definición viable tanto en un nivel jerárquico como descriptivo. La presente tesis se encuentra dividida en cinco capítulos. El primer capítulo comprende una exposición y revisión critica del tratamiento monolingüe lexicográfico y analítico que la preposición hacia ha recibido en las principales obras de referencia, donde se observa que las inadecuaciones y omisiones presentes en la totalidad de las definiciones analizadas representan tan sólo el estadio superior de una problemática de carácter ontológico y, por tanto, metodológico, en el tratamiento de las preposiciones. El capítulo segundo comprende la presentación de la perspectiva teórica metodológica adoptada en esta tesis para el análisis y definición monolingüe de la preposición hacia, teniendo por líneas directrices las propuestas realizadas por G. Lakoff , así como a los fundamentos establecidos por R. Langacker en su propuesta cognitiva para una nueva gramática. En forma conjunta y complementaria, y dentro del mismo paradigma, empleamos, discutimos críticamente y desarrollamos diferentes aportes analítico-metodológicos para el tratamiento de la polisemia en unidades lingüísticas locativas. En el capítulo tercero, y en acuerdo con las exigencias respecto a la utilización de datos empíricos obtenidos a partir de corpus textuales, se expone un análisis original monolingüe de la preposición hacia en observancia de los principios y la metodología explicitada en el capítulo segundo, teniendo por principal objetivo la construcción de una representación semántica de la polisemia de la preposición que comprenda y articule los sentidos prototípicos para ésta especificados. El capítulo cuarto, y en acuerdo con los resultados de nuestro análisis monolingual de la preposición, se examinan, describen y establecen los equivalentes correspondientes en finés para hacia; asimismo, se contrastan en este capítulo los resultados obtenidos con las definiciones lexicográficas bilingües vigentes. Se recogen en el último y quinto capítulo de esta tesis algunas observaciones tanto respecto a los postulados ontológicos y teórico-metodológicos de la perspectiva adoptada, así como algunas notas para la construcción de una metodología general para el análisis semántico preposicional.

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This study investigates the significance of art in Jean-Luc Nancy s philosophy. I argue that the notion of art contributes to some of Nancy s central ontological ideas. Therefore, I consider art s importance in its own right whether art does have ontological significance, and if so, how one should describe this with respect to the theme of presentation. According to my central argument, with his thinking on art Nancy attempts to give one viewpoint to what is called the metaphysics of presence and to its deconstruction. On which grounds, as I propose, may one say that art is not reducible to philosophy? The thesis is divided into two main parts. The first part, Presentation as a Philosophical Theme, is a historical genesis of the central concepts associated with the birth of presentation in Nancy s philosophy. I examine this from the viewpoint of the differentiation between the ontological notions of presentation and representation by concentrating on the influence of Martin Heidegger and Jacques Derrida, as well as of Hegel and Kant. I give an overview of the way in which being or sense for Nancy is to be described as a coming-into-presence or presentation . Therefore, being takes place in its singular plurality. I argue that Nancy redevelops Heidegger s account of being in two principal ways: first, in rethinking the ontico-ontological difference, and secondly, by striving to radicalize the Heideggerian concept of Mitsein, being-with . I equally wish to show the importance of Derrida s notion of différance and its inherence in Nancy s questioning of being that rests on the unfoundedness of existence. The second part, From Ontology to Art, draws on the importance of art and the aesthetic. If, in Nancy, the question of art touches upon its own limit as the limit of nothingness, how is art able to open its own strangeness and our exposure to this strangeness? My aim is to investigate how Nancy s thinking on art finds its place within the conceptual realm of its inherent difference and interval. My central concern is the thought of originary ungroundedness and the plurality of art and of the arts. As for the question of the difference between art and philosophy, I wish to show that what differentiates art from thought is the fact that art exposes what is obvious but not apparent, if apparent is understood in the sense of givenness. As for art s ability to deconstruct Nancy s ontological notions, I suggest that in question in art is its original heterogeneity and diversity. Art is a matter of differing art occurs singularly, as a local difference. With this in mind, I point out that in reflecting on art in terms of spacing and interval, as a thinker of difference Nancy comes closer to Derrida and his idea of différance than to the structure of Heidegger s ontological difference.

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This doctoral thesis in theoretical philosophy is a systematic analysis of Karl Popper's philosophy of science and its relation to his theory of three worlds. The general aim is to study Popper's philosophy of science and to show that Popper's theory of three worlds was a restatement of his earlier positions. As a result, a new reading of Popper's philosophy and development is offered and the theory of three worlds is analysed in a new manner. It is suggested that the theory of three worlds is not purely an ontological theory, but has a profound epistemological motivation. In Part One, Popper's epistemology and philosophy of science is analysed. It is claimed that Popper's thinking was bifurcated: he held two profound positions without noticing the tension between them. Popper adopted the position called the theorist around 1930 and focused on the logical structure of scientific theories. In Logik der Forschung (1935), he attempted to build a logic of science on the grounds that scientific theories may be regarded as universal statements which are not verifiable but can be falsified. Later, Popper emphasized another position, called here the processionalist. Popper focused on the study of science as a process and held that a) philosophy of science should study the growth of knowledge and that b) all cognitive processes are constitutive. Moreover, the constitutive idea that we see the world in the searchlight of our theories was combined with the biological insight that knowledge grows by trial and error. In Part Two, the theory of three worlds is analysed systematically. The theory is discussed as a cluster of theories which originate from Popper's attempt to solve some internal problems in his thinking. Popper adhered to realism and wished to reconcile the theorist and the processionalist. He also stressed the real and active nature of the human mind, and the possibility of objective knowledge. Finally, he wished to create a scientific world view.

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This dissertation analyzes the interrelationship between death, the conditions of (wo)man s social being, and the notion of value as it emerges in the fiction of the American novelist Thomas Pynchon (1937 ). Pynchon s present work includes six novels V. (1963), The Crying of Lot 49 (1966), Gravity s Rainbow (1973), Vineland (1990), Mason & Dixon (1997), Against the Day (2006) and several short stories. Death constitues a central thematic in Pynchon s work, and it emerges through recurrent questions of mortality, suicide, mass destruction, sacrifice, afterlife, entropy, the relationship between the animate and the inanimate, and the limits of representation. In Pynchon, death is never a mere biological given (or event); it is always determined within a certain historical, cultural, and ideological context. Throughout his work, Pynchon questions the strict ontological separation of life and death by showing the relationship between this separation and social power. Conceptual divisions also reflect the relationship between society and its others, and death becomes that through which lines of social demarcation are articulated. Determined as a conceptual and social "other side", death in Pynchon forms a challenge to modern culture, and makes an unexpected return: the dead return to haunt the living, the inanimate and the animate fuse, and technoscientific attempts at overcoming and controlling death result in its re-emergence in mass destruction and ecological damage. The questioning of the ontological line also affects the structuration of Pynchon's prose, where the recurrent narrated and narrative desire to reach the limits of representation is openly associated with death. Textualized, death appears in Pynchon's writing as a sudden rupture within the textual functioning, when the "other side", that is, the bare materiality of the signifier is foregrounded. In this study, Pynchon s cultural criticism and his poetics come together, and I analyze the subversive role of death in his fiction through Jean Baudrillard s genealogy of the modern notion of death from L échange symbolique et la mort (1976). Baudrillard sees an intrinsic bond between the social repression of death in modernity and the emergence of modern political economy, and in his analysis economy and language appear as parallel systems for generating value (exchange value/ sign-value). For Baudrillard, the modern notion of death as negativity in relation to the positivity of life, and the fact that death cannot be given a proper meaning, betray an antagonistic relation between death and the notion of value. As a mode of negativity (that is, non-value), death becomes a moment of rupture in relation to value-based thinking in short, rationalism. Through this rupture emerges a form of thinking Baudrillard labels the symbolic, characterized by ambivalence and the subversion of conceptual opposites.

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In this study I consider what kind of perspective on the mind body problem is taken and can be taken by a philosophical position called non-reductive physicalism. Many positions fall under this label. The form of non-reductive physicalism which I discuss is in essential respects the position taken by Donald Davidson (1917-2003) and Georg Henrik von Wright (1916-2003). I defend their positions and discuss the unrecognized similarities between their views. Non-reductive physicalism combines two theses: (a) Everything that exists is physical; (b) Mental phenomena cannot be reduced to the states of the brain. This means that according to non-reductive physicalism the mental aspect of humans (be it a soul, mind, or spirit) is an irreducible part of the human condition. Also Davidson and von Wright claim that, in some important sense, the mental aspect of a human being does not reduce to the physical aspect, that there is a gap between these aspects that cannot be closed. I claim that their arguments for this conclusion are convincing. I also argue that whereas von Wright and Davidson give interesting arguments for the irreducibility of the mental, their physicalism is unwarranted. These philosophers do not give good reasons for believing that reality is thoroughly physical. Notwithstanding the materialistic consensus in the contemporary philosophy of mind the ontology of mind is still an uncharted territory where real breakthroughs are not to be expected until a radically new ontological position is developed. The third main claim of this work is that the problem of mental causation cannot be solved from the Davidsonian - von Wrightian perspective. The problem of mental causation is the problem of how mental phenomena like beliefs can cause physical movements of the body. As I see it, the essential point of non-reductive physicalism - the irreducibility of the mental - and the problem of mental causation are closely related. If mental phenomena do not reduce to causally effective states of the brain, then what justifies the belief that mental phenomena have causal powers? If mental causes do not reduce to physical causes, then how to tell when - or whether - the mental causes in terms of which human actions are explained are actually effective? I argue that this - how to decide when mental causes really are effective - is the real problem of mental causation. The motivation to explore and defend a non-reductive position stems from the belief that reductive physicalism leads to serious ethical problems. My claim is that Davidson's and von Wright's ultimate reason to defend a non-reductive view comes back to their belief that a reductive understanding of human nature would be a narrow and possibly harmful perspective. The final conclusion of my thesis is that von Wright's and Davidson's positions provide a starting point from which the current scientistic philosophy of mind can be critically further explored in the future.

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The study shows that the reading paradigm derived from codes Roland Barthes presented in his S/Z exposes the postmodernic nature of Saul Bellow s Herzog (1964), and embodies in which way the novel is organized as a radical rewriting of modernism and its ideology. I explore how solid, compact and modernistic subject breaks down at every level of Herzog s narration. I actually argue that the heteroglossic novel is representative of an early American postmodern movement in literaure, and it should by no means be dissected narrowly as a realistic or naturalistic novel at all. The intertextual code verifies that the interpretation of Herzog remains inadequate if one doesn t take account of the novel s significant intertextual references to other texts. In fact, even the mind of Moses Herzog, the protagonist of the novel, is a mosaic of citations. It emerges from the dissertation that the figure of Don Quixote follows Moses Herzog as an ambiguous shadow while the professor of history struggles with his anxiety and anguish, and travels in a mentally confused state around the U.S. for five days in the early 1960s, encountering the impending atmosphere of transition as the country is on the threshold of a significant cultural and social change. There is a strong necessity for updated interpretation of Herzog partly because its centrality to Bellow s own career as a writer but mainly because it has been previously read trough modernistic lenses. I shall try to proof in my study that American Jewish Saul Bellow s (1915 2005) Herzog escapes any kind of simple, elemental or essentialistic construction or reading and in real terms it doesn t offer any comprehensive, total or coherent solution or system for those philosophical doctrines it criticizes and makes fun of. The philosophical, conceptual and cultural substance of Herzog does not constitute an independent or autonomous theoretical tract which would have a life of its own. Altough the novel reflects the continuity of Bellow s writing it is clearly some kind of conscious or unconscious experiment during his long career as a writer. He hasn t been so radical before or since the publication of Herzog. It is unarguably his most postmodern novel.The reading paradigm based on specific codes demonstrates how deep into the basic questions of his personal life and existence itself he must dive in oder to find his many ways towards authentic or primordial self in fragmented and shattered world which is constanly rewritten and which makes human being a tourist of his own life. In that ongoing process the protagonist has to accept the ultimate plurality of his mind and self. He must confront that the modernistic definition of identity as a solid, monolithic and stable entity has broken down into different, inconsistent and even contradictory possibilities of identification. Moses Herzog embodies obviously Stuart Hall s description of the postmodern self his identity has turn into a movable feast.

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Anselm of Canterbury (1033–1109) was a prolific letter writer. The modern edition of his letter collection comprises more than 600 folio-size pages in print and includes 472 letters, the vast majority of which were sent by him. Our knowledge of Anselm’s letters is derived from collections of his letters, for none of his correspondence survives in its original form of individual letters. There was no one canonical version of the collection, and the extant manuscripts generally differ substantially: the largest medieval manuscript witnesses include over 400 letters, while the smallest contain only a few. We know 38 manuscript witnesses, but no authorial manuscript survives. Certain references in Anselm’s letters reveal, however, that he collected his correspondence on at least two occasions while he was still abbot of Bec, and this study proposes that a third collection was possibly made under his supervision in Christ Church. The third collection also covered Anselm’s Canterbury period. Whether the third collection was authorial or posthumous is unclear. Certain contextual evidence and references in letters would suggest that the collection was authorial. If so, the collection was probably a register book, which was started in c. 1101 at the earliest. There is no positive proof that any of the three surviving minor collections may be authorial. Each of these collections was circulating at a very early stage, however, some probably in Anselm’s lifetime. Moreover, the minor collections seem to have been put together from smaller source units, which possibly originated at Bec. The contents of these units suggest very early and possibly authorial origins: the letters are mainly from Anselm’s years as prior of Bec. The critical edition by F. S. Schmitt represents the current phase in the textual tradition of Anselm’s letter collection. This study demonstrates that the value of the edition is weakened in particular by the way in which Schmitt selected manuscripts for collation, doubtless influenced by the fact that he had not established the structure of the tradition properly. Ultimately it is impossible to undertake systematic research on the letter collection on the basis of Schmitt’s edition.

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Bestiality was in the 18th century a more difficult problem in terms of criminal policy in Sweden and Finland than in any other Christian country in any other period. In the legal history of deviant sexuality, the phenomenon was uniquely widespread by international comparison. The number of court cases per capita in Finland was even higher than in Sweden. The authorities classified bestiality among the most serious crimes and a deadly sin. The Court of Appeal in Turku opted for an independent line and was clearly more lenient than Swedish courts of justice. Death sentences on grounds of bestiality ended in the 1730s, decades earlier than in Sweden. The sources for the present dissertation include judgment books and Court of Appeal decisions in 253 cases, which show that the persecution of those engaging in bestial acts in 18th century Finland was not organised by the centralised power of Stockholm. There is little evidence of local campaigns that would have been led by authorities. The church in its orthodoxy was losing ground and the clergy governed their parishes with more pragmatism than the Old Testament sanctioned. When exposing bestiality, the legal system was compelled to rely on the initiative of the public. In cases of illicit intercourse or adultery the authorities were even more dependent on the activeness of the local community. Bestiality left no tangible evidence, illegitimate children, to betray the crime to the clergy or secular authorities. The moral views of the church and the local community were not on a collision course. It was a common view that bestiality was a heinous act. Yet nowhere near all crimes came to the authorities' knowledge. Because of the heavy burden of proof, the legal position of the informer was difficult. Passiveness in reporting the crime was partly because most Finns felt it was not their place to intervene in their neighbours' private lives, as long as that privacy posed no serious threat to the neighbourhood. Hidden crime was at least as common as crime more easily exposed and proven. A typical Finnish perpetrator of bestiality was a young unmarried man with no criminal background or mental illness. The suspects were not members of ethnic minorities or marginal social groups. In trials, farmhands were more likely to be sentenced than their masters, but a more salient common denominator than social and economical status was the suspects' young age. For most of the defendants bestiality was a deep-rooted habit, which had been adopted in early youth. This form of subculture spread among the youth, and the most susceptible to experiment with the act were shepherds. The difference between man and animal was not clear-cut or self-evident. The difficulty in drawing the line is evident both in legal sources and Finnish folklore. The law that required that the animal partners be slaughtered led to the killing of thousands of cows and mares, and thereby to substantial material losses to their owners. Regarding bestiality as a crime against property motivated people to report it. The belief that the act would produce human-animal mongrels or that it would poison the milk and the meat horrified the public more than the teachings of the church ever could. Among the most significant aspects in the problems regarding the animals is how profoundly different the worldview of 18th century people was from that of today.

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Music as the Art of Anxiety: A Philosophical Approach to the Existential-Ontological Meaning of Music. The present research studies music as an art of anxiety from the points of view of both Martin Heidegger s thought and phenomenological philosophy in general. In the Heideggerian perspective, anxiety is understood as a fundamental mode of being (Grundbefindlichkeit) in human existence. Taken as an existential-ontological concept, anxiety is conceived philosophically and not psychologically. The central research questions are: what is the relationship between music and existential-ontological anxiety? In what way can music be considered as an art of anxiety? In thinking of music as a channel and manifestation of anxiety, what makes it a special case? What are the possible applications of phenomenology and Heideggerian thought in musicology? The main aim of the research is to develop a theory of music as an art of existential-ontological anxiety and to apply this theory to musicologically relevant phenomena. Furthermore, the research will contribute to contemporary musicological debates and research as it aims to outline the phenomenological study of music as a field of its own; the development of a specific methodology is implicit in these aims. The main subject of the study, a theory of music as an art of anxiety, integrates Heideggerian and phenomenological philosophies with critical and cultural theories concerning violence, social sacrifice, and mimetic desire (René Girard), music, noise and society (Jacques Attali), and the affect-based charme of music (Vladimir Jankélévitch). Thus, in addition to the subjective mood (Stimmung) of emptiness and meaninglessness, the philosophical concept of anxiety also refers to a state of disorder and chaos in general; for instance, to noise in the realm of sound and total (social) violence at the level of society. In this study, music is approached as conveying the existentially crucial human compulsion for signifying i.e., organizing chaos. In music, this happens primarily at the immediate level of experience, i.e. in affectivity, and also in relation to all of the aforementioned dimensions (sound, society, consciousness, and so on). Thus, music s existential-ontological meaning in human existence, Dasein, is in its ability to reveal different orders of existence as such. Indeed, this makes music the art of anxiety: more precisely, music can be existentially significant at the level of moods. The study proceeds from outlining the relevance of phenomenology and Heidegger s philosophy in musicology to the philosophical development of a theory of music as the art of anxiety. The theory is developed further through the study of three selected specific musical phenomena: the concept of a musical work, guitar smashing in the performance tradition of rock music, and Erik Bergman s orchestral work Colori ed improvvisazioni. The first example illustrates the level of individual human-subject in music as the art of anxiety, as a means of signifying chaos, while the second example focuses on the collective need to socio-culturally channel violence. The third example, being music-analytical, studies contemporary music s ability to mirror the structures of anxiety at the level of a specific musical text. The selected examples illustrate that, in addition to the philosophical orientation, the research also contributes to music analysis, popular music studies, and the cultural-critical study of music. Key words: music, anxiety, phenomenology, Martin Heidegger, ontology, guitar smashing, Erik Bergman, musical work, affectivity, Stimmung, René Girard

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This paper concentrates on Heraclitus, Parmenides and Lao Zi. The focus is on their ideas on change and whether the world is essentially One or if it is composed of many entities. In the first chapter I go over some general tendences in Greek and Chinese philosophy. The differences in the cultural background have an influence in the ways philosophy is made, but the paper aims to show that two questions can be brought up when comparing the philosophies of Heraclitus, Parmenides and Lao Zi. The questions are; is the world essentially One or Many? Is change real and if it is, what is the nature of it and how does it take place? For Heraclitus change is real, and as will be shown later in the chapter, quite essential for the sustainability of the world-order (kosmos). The key-concept in the case of Heraclitus is Logos. Heraclitus uses Logos in several senses, most well known relating to his element-theory. But another important feature of the Logos, the content of real wisdom, is to be able to regard everything as one. This does not mean that world is essentially one for Heraclitus in the ontological sense, but that we should see the underlying unity of multiple phenomena. Heraclitus regards this as hen panta: All from One, One from All. I characterize Heraclitus as epistemic monist and an ontological pluralist. It is plausible that the views of Heraclitus on change were the focus of Parmenides’ severe criticism. Parmenides held the view that the world is essentially one and that to see it as consisting of many entities was the error of mortals, i.e. the common man and his philosophical predecessors. For Parmenides what-is, can be approached by two routes; The Way of Truth (Aletheia) and The Way of Seeming (Doxa). Aletheia essentially sees the world as one, where even time is an illusion. In Doxa Parmenides is giving an explanation of the world seen as consisting of many entities and this is his contribution to the line of thought of his predecessors. It should be noted that a strong emphasis is given to the Aletheia, whereas the world-view given is in Doxa is only probable. I go on to describe Parmenides as ontological monist, who gives some plausibility to pluralistic views. In the work of Lao Zi world can be seen as One or as consisting of Many entities. In my interpretation, Lao Zi uses Dao in two different senses; Dao is the totality of things or the order in change. The wu-aspect (seeing-without-form) attends the world as one, whereas the you-aspect attends the world of many entities. In wu-aspect, Dao refers to the totality of things, when in you-aspect Dao is the order or law in change. There are two insights in Lao Zi regarding the relationship between wu- and- you-apects; in ch.1 it is stated that they are two separate aspects in seeing the world, the other chapters regarding that you comes from wu. This naturally brings in the question whether the One is the peak of seeing the world as many. In other words, is there a way from pluralism to monism. All these considerations make it probable that the work attributed to Lao Zi has been added new material or is a compilation of oral sayings. In the end of the paper I will go on to give some insights on how Logos and Dao can be compared in a relevant manner. I also compare Parmenides holistic monism to Lao Zi’s Dao as nameless totality (i.e. in its wu-aspect). I briefly touch the issues of Heidegger and the future of comparative philosophy.

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The study is a philosophical analysis of Israel Scheffler’s philosophy of education, focusing on three crucial conceptions in his philosophy: the conception of rationality, the conception of human nature, and the conception of reality. The interrelations of these three concepts as well as their relations to educational theorizing are analysed and elaborated. A conceptual problem concerning Scheffler’s ideal of rationality derives from Scheffler’s supposition of the strong analogy between science education and moral education in terms of the ideal of rationality. This analogy is argued to be conceptually problematic, since the interconnections of rationality, objectivity, and truth, appear to differ from each other in the realms of ethics and science, given the presuppositions of ontological realism and ethical naturalism, to which Scheffler explicitly subscribes. This study considers two philosophical alternatives for solving this problem. The first alternative relates the analogy to the normative concept of personhood deriving from the teleological understanding of human nature. Nevertheless, this position turns out to be problematic for Scheffler, since he rejects all teleological thinking in his philosophy. The problem can be solved, as it is argued, by limiting Scheffler’s rejection of teleology – in light of his philosophical outlook on the whole – in a manner that allows a modest version of a teleological conception of human nature. The second alternative, based especially on Scheffler’s later contributions, is to suggest that reality is actually more complex and manifold than it appears to be in light of a contemporary naturalist worldview. This idea of plurealism – Scheffler’s synthesis of pluralism and realism – is represented especially in Scheffler’s contributions related to his debate with Nelson Goodman dealing with both constructivism and realism. The idea of plurealism is not only related to the ethics-science-distinction, but is more widely related to the relationship between ontological realism and the incommensurable systems of description in diverse realms of human understanding. The Scheffler-Goodman debate is also analysed in relation to the contemporary constructivism-realism debate in educational philosophy. In terms of educational questions, Scheffler’s plurealism is argued as offering a fruitful perspective. Scheffler’s philosophy of education can be interpreted as searching for solutions to the problems deriving from the tension between the tradition of analytical philosophy and the complexity and multiplicity of educational reality. The complexity of reality combined with the supposition of the limitedness of human knowledge does not lead Scheffler to relativism or particularism, but, in contrast, Schefflerian formulations of rationality and objectivity preserve the possibility for critical inquiry in all realms of educational reality. In light of this study, Scheffler’s philosophy of education provides an exceptional example of combining ontological realism, epistemological fallibilism, and the defence of the ideal of rationality, combined with a wide-ranging understanding of educational reality.

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ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) is developmental neurobiological disability. In adults, the prevalence of ADHD has been estimated to be about 4 %. In addition to the difficulties of attention, the problems in executive functioning are typical. The psychiatric comorbidities are common. The most extensively studied treatments are pharmacological. There is also evidence about the usefulness of the cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) in the treatment of adults with ADHD. There are some preliminary results about the effectiveness of cognitive training and hypnosis in children, but there is no scientific proof in adults. This dissertation is based on two intervention studies. In the first study, the usefulness of the new group CBT (n = 29) and the maintenance of the symptom reduction in the follow-up of six months were studied. In the second study, the usefulness of short hypnotherapy (n = 9), short individual CBT (n = 10) and computerized cognitive training (n = 9) were examined by comparing groups with each other and to the control group (n = 10). The participation in the group CBT and the participants' satisfaction were good. There were no changes in self-reports during waiting period of three months. After the rehabilitation, the symptoms decreased. Participants having symptom reduction during rehabilitation maintained their benefit through 6-month follow-up period. In a combined ADHD symptom score based on self-reports, seven participants in the hypnotherapy, six in the CBT, two in the cognitive training and two controls improved. Using independent evaluations, improvement was found in six of the hypnotherapy, seven of the CBT, two of the cognitive training and three of the control participants. There was no treatment-related improvement in cognitive performance. Thus, in the hypnotherapy and CBT groups, some encouraging improvement was seen. In the cognitive training group, there was improvement in the trained tasks but no generalization of the improvement. The results support the earlier results from the usefulness of CBT in the treatment of adults with ADHD. Also the hypnotherapy seems a useful rehabilitation. More research is needed to evaluate the usefulness of cognitive training. These promising results warrant further studies with more participants and with longer treatment duration. Also different measures of cognitive functioning and quality of life are needed. It is important in addition to the medication to arrange psychosocial interventions for the ADHD adults.