Lewis’ Theory of Counterfactuals and Essentialism

La logique contemporaine a connu de nombreux développements au cours de la seconde moitié du siècle dernier. Le plus sensationnel est celui de la logique modale et de sa sémantique des mondes possibles (SMP) dû à Saul Kripke dans les années soixante. Ces dans ce cadre que David Lewis exposera sa sémantique des contrefactuels (SCF). Celle-ci constitue une véritable excroissance de l’architecture kripkéenne. Mais sur quoi finalement repose l’architecture kripkéenne elle-même ? Il semble bien que la réponse soit celle d’une ontologie raffinée ultimement basée sur la notion de mondes possible. Ce mémoire comporte quatre objectifs. Dans un premier temps, nous allons étudier ce qui distingue les contrefactuels des autres conditionnels et faire un survol historique de la littérature concernant les contrefactuels et leur application dans différent champs du savoir comme la philosophie des sciences et l’informatique. Dans un deuxième temps, nous ferons un exposé systématique de la théorie de Lewis telle qu’elle est exposée dans son ouvrage Counterfactuals. Finalement, nous allons explorer la fondation métaphysique des mondes possible de David Lewis dans son conception de Réalisme Modal.

Predicating from an early age: edusemiotics and the potential of children’s preconceptions

This paper aims to explain how semiotics and constructivism can collaborate in an educational epistemology by developing a joint approach to prescientific conceptions. Empirical data and findings of constructivist research are interpreted in the light of Peirce’s semiotics. Peirce’s semiotics is an anti-psychologistic logic (CP 2.252; CP 4.551; W 8:15; Pietarinen in Signs of logic, Springer, Dordrecht, 2006; Stjernfelt in Diagrammatology. An investigation on the borderlines of phenomenology, ontology and semiotics, Springer, Dordrecht, 2007) and relational logic. Constructivism was traditionally developed within psychology and sociology and, therefore, some incompatibilities can be expected between these two schools. While acknowledging the differences, we explain that constructivism and semiotics share the assumption of realism that knowledge can only be developed upon knowledge and, therefore, an epistemological collaboration is possible. The semiotic analysis performed confirms the constructivist results and provides a further insight into the teacher-student relation. Like the constructivist approach, Peirce’s doctrine of agapism infers that the personal dimension of teaching must not be ignored. Thus, we argue for the importance of genuine sympathy in teaching attitudes. More broadly, the article also contributes to the development of postmodern humanities. At the end of the modern age, the humanities are passing through a critical period of transformation. There is a growing interest in semiotics and semiotic philosophy in many areas of the humanities. Such a case, on which we draw, is the development of a theoretical semiotic approach to education, namely edusemiotics (Stables and Semetsky, Pedagogy and edusemiotics: theoretical challenge/practical opportunities, Sense Publishers, Rotterdam, 2015).

Why Implementing History and Philosophy in School Science Education is a Challenge: An Analysis of Obstacles

Teaching and learning with history and philosophy of science (HPS) has been, and continues to be, supported by science educators. While science education standards documents in many countries also stress the importance of teaching and learning with HPS, the approach still suffers from ineffective implementation in school science teaching. In order to better understand this problem, an analysis of the obstacles of implementing HPS into classrooms was undertaken. The obstacles taken into account were structured in four groups: 1. culture of teaching physics, 2. teachers` skills, epistemological and didactical attitudes and beliefs, 3. institutional framework of science teaching, and 4. textbooks as fundamental didactical support. Implications for more effective implementation of HPS are presented, taking the social nature of educational systems into account.

Analytic Methods for the Logic of Proofs

The logic of proofs (lp) was proposed as Gdels missed link between Intuitionistic and S4-proofs, but so far the tableau-based methods proposed for lp have not explored this closeness with S4 and contain rules whose analycity is not immediately evident. We study possible formulations of analytic tableau proof methods for lp that preserve the subformula property. Two sound and complete tableau decision methods of increasing degree of analycity are proposed, KELP and preKELP. The latter is particularly inspired on S4-proofs. The crucial role of proof constants in the structure of lp-proofs methods is analysed. In particular, a method for the abduction of proof constant specifications in strongly analytic preKELP proofs is presented; abduction heuristics and the complexity of the method are discussed.

'In Charge of the Truffula Seeds' : On Children's Literature, Rationality and Children's Voices in Philosophy

In this paper I investigate how philosophy can speak for children and how children can have a voice in philosophy and speak for philosophy. I argue that we should understand children as responsible rational individuals who are involved in their own philosophical inquiries and who can be involved in our own philosophical investigations-not because of their rational abilities, but because we acknowledge them as conversational partners, acknowledge their reasons as reasons, and speak for them as well as let them speak for us and our rational community. In order to argue this I turn, first, to Gareth Matthews' philosophy of childhood and suggest a reconstruction of some of his concepts in line with the philosophy of Stanley Cavell. Second, in order to examine more closely our conceptions of rationality and our pictures of children, I consider the children's books, The Lorax and Where is My Sister? and Henrik Ibsen's play, The Wild Duck.

Nietzsche's perspectivism and problems of self-refutation

Nietzsche's perspectivism has aroused the perplexity of many a recent commentator, not least because of the doctrine's apparent self-refuting character.  If, as Nietzsche holds, there are no facts but only interpretations, then how are we to understand this claim itself?  Nietzsche's perspectivism must be construed either as a facts or as one further interpretation - but in the former case the doctine is clearly self-refuting, while in the latter case any reasons or arguments one may have in support of one's perspective are rendered both impotent and superflouos.  The unpalatable consequencs of Nietzsche's perspectivism are further highlighted by considering its effects on Nietzsche's treatment of the fundamental laws of logic, such as the principle of non-contradiction.  Finally, Nietzsche's perspectivism, if not self-refuting, at least seems to be refuted by his own writings, where he confidently puts forward various doctines and critiques, thus indicating that he does not think of his own beliefs as being true merely in a perspectival sense.  There is every reason, i conclude, to be perplexed about Nietzsche's perspectivism.

Michael Polanyi and Karl Popper : the fraying of a long-standing acquaintance

Based upon archival correspondence and their publications, this essay analyzes the interaction of Karl Popper and Michael Polanyi. Popper sent Polanyi for review in 1932 an early draft of The Logic of Discovery. Friedrich Hayek helped both Polanyi and Popper publish some of their writings in the forties. Polanyi renewed his acquaintance with Popper in the late forties when Popper took a position at the London School of Economics and they met to discuss common interests. In the early fifties, as Polanyi prepared and presented his Gifford Lectures and published The Logic of Liberty, Polanyi became increasingly clear and articulate in distinguishing his social philosophy and philosophy of science from Popper’s ideas. Polanyi’s 1952 paper “The Stability of Belief” forthrightly presented Polanyi’s post-critical ideas that Popper overtly rejected in an important letter. After this, they had little to do with each other.

Spinoza/space/speed/sublime: Problems of philosophy and politics in the post-colonial fiction of Gerald Murnane

This article takes account of the ‘spontaneity’ of the post-colonial fiction of Gerald Murnane within the ‘dominating space’ of the philosophy of Spinoza. My use of Paul Carter’s terms here is strategic. The compact of fiction and philosophy in Murnane corresponds with the relationship of spontaneity to the dominating organization of desire in Carter’s rendering of an Aboriginal hunter. Carter’s phrase “‘a figure at once spontaneous and wholly dominated by the space of his desire’” worries Ken Gelder and Jane M. Jacobs, who suggest that it subjugates the formation of Aboriginal desire (incorporating spontaneity) to impulses of imperialism. The captivating immanence of Spinoza’s philosophy in Murnane’s fiction, which I will demonstrate with various examples, puts pressure on the fiction to occupy the same space as the space of the philosophy. Here is a clue to why Murnane’s post-colonial thematics have been little explored by critics with an interest in post-colonial politics. The desire of Spinoza’s philosophy creates a spatial textuality within which the spontaneity of Murnane’s fiction, to the degree that it maximizes or fills the philosophy, is minimized in its political effects. That is to say, the fiction shifts politics into an external space of what Roland Barthes calls “resistance or condemnation”. However, the different speeds (or timings) of Murnane and Spinoza, within the one space, mitigate this resistance of the outside, at least in respect of certain circumstances of post-coloniality. It is especially productive, I suggest, to engage Carter’s representation of an Aboriginal hunter through the compact of coincidental spaces and differential speeds created by Murnane’s fiction in Spinoza’s philosophy. This produces a ceaseless activation of desire and domination, evidenced in Murnane’s short story ‘Land Deal’, and indexed by a post-Romantic sublime. What limits the value of Murnane’s fiction in most contexts of post-colonial politics, is precisely what makes it useful in the matter of Carter’s Aboriginal hunter.

Córdoban Discourses: A Drama of Interreligious Dialogue

SETTING: Cordoba, Spain, 1135 CE, 29th year of the reign of ‘Ali “amir al-muslimin,” second king of the Berber Almoravid dynasty, rulers of Moorish Spain from 1071 to 1147. Cordoba, the capital of Andalus and the center of the Almoravid holdings in Spain, is a bustling cosmopolitan center, a crossroads for Europe and the Middle East, and the meeting-point of three religious traditions. Most significantly, Cordoba at this time is the hub of European intellectual activity. From the square—itself impressively large and surrounded by a massive collonade, the regularity and ordered beauty of which typifies the Moorish taste for symmetry (so beloved of M.C. Escher)—can be seen the huge Cordoban mosque, erected in the 8th-century by Khalif Abd-er-Rahman I to the glory of Allah, oft forgiving, most merciful. It is the second largest building in Islam, and the bastion of the still entrenched but soon to fade Muslim presence in western Europe. SCENE: Three figures sit upon stone benches beneath the westernmost colonnade of the Cordoban mosque, involved in an animated, though friendly discussion on matters of faith and reason, knowledge and God, language and logic. The host is none other than Jehudah Halevi, and his esteemed guests Master Peter Abelard and the venerable Råmånuja, whose obviously advanced age belies his youthful voice, gleaming eye, quick hands, and general exuberance. It is autumn, early evening…

Implementation of multiple specialization in logic programs

We study the múltiple specialization of logic programs based on abstract interpretation. This involves in general generating several versions of a program predícate for different uses of such predícate, making use of information obtained from global analysis performed by an abstract interpreter, and finally producing a new, "multiply specialized" program. While the topic of múltiple specialization of logic programs has received considerable theoretical attention, it has never been actually incorporated in a compiler and its effects quantified. We perform such a study in the context of a parallelizing compiler and show that it is indeed a relevant technique in practice. Also, we propose an implementation technique which has the same power as the strongest of the previously proposed techniques but requires little or no modification of an existing abstract interpreter.

The role of computational logic as a hinge paradigm among deduction, problem solving, programming, and parallelism

This paper presents some brief considerations on the role of Computational Logic in the construction of Artificial Intelligence systems and in programming in general. It does not address how the many problems in AI can be solved but, rather more modestly, tries to point out some advantages of Computational Logic as a tool for the AI scientist in his quest. It addresses the interaction between declarative and procedural views of programs (deduction and action), the impact of the intrinsic limitations of logic, the relationship with other apparently competing computational paradigms, and finally discusses implementation-related issues, such as the efficiency of current implementations and their capability for efficiently exploiting existing and future sequential and parallel hardware. The purpose of the discussion is in no way to present Computational Logic as the unique overall vehicle for the development of intelligent systems (in the firm belief that such a panacea is yet to be found) but rather to stress its strengths in providing reasonable solutions to several aspects of the task.

Analysis of concurrent constraint logic programs with a fixed scheduling rule

The analysis of concurrent constraint programs is a challenge due to the inherently concurrent behaviour of its computational model. However, most implementations of the concurrent paradigm can be viewed as a computation with a fixed scheduling rule which suspends some goals so that their execution is postponed until some condition awakens them. For a certain kind of properties, an analysis defined in these terms is correct. Furthermore, it is much more tractable, and in addition can make use of existing analysis technology for the underlying fixed computation rule. We show how this can be done when the starting point is a framework for the analysis of sequential programs. The resulting analysis, which incorporates suspensions, is adequate for concurrent models where concurrency is localized, e.g. the Andorra model. We refine the analysis for this particular case. Another model in which concurrency is preferably encapsulated, and thus suspensions are local to parts of the computation, is that of CIAO. Nonetheless, the analysis scheme can be generalized to models with global concurrency. We also sketch how this could be done, and we show how the resulting analysis framework could be used for analyzing typical properties, such as suspensión freeness.

Analysis of irregular behaviour on an optical computing logic cell

A new methodology to study irregular behaviours in logic cells is reported. It is based on two types of diagrams, namely phase and working diagrams. Sets of four bits are grouped and represented by their hexadecimal equivalent. Some hexadecimal numbers correspond to certain logic functions. The influence of the internal and external tolerances, namely those appearing in the employed devices and in the working signals, may be analysed with this method. Its importance in the case of logic structures with chaotic behaviours is studied.