Edited by Daniel Z. Korman(University of California, Santa Barbara)
Assistant editor: Andrew Higgins(Illinois State University)
About this topic
Summary
Objects are subjects of predication: anything of which something can be said is an object. So construed, the category of objects covers not only material beings like mountains, baseballs, and electrons, but also abstracta (numbers, properties, relations, set). and even non-existent entities if there be any. The papers contained herein concern the nature and existence of different varieties of objects. Some of the most prominent topics include the relation between an objects and the properties it bears; the relation between an object and its parts (mereology); the identity relation that holds between an object and itself; and the persistence of objects through time.
Minimalism is the view that the mark of action is object-causation, rather than intentionality, voluntariness or goal-directedness. Actions, on this view, are instances of objects causing change. Despite a recent surge of interest in the view, it is still seldom regarded as a serious alternative to orthodox theories of action, according to which action is, by its nature, intentional, voluntary, or, more broadly, a psychological phenomenon. This paper argues that it should. It provides a simple argument for regarding minimalism as (...) the default view of the nature of action. (shrink)
This paper develops an account of equality and justice through changes in the individual to whom concern is directed. Selection operates between individuals; equality characterizes the inclusion of their parts within one individual. As relations become more integrated, formerly separate parties can enter into a larger individual whose concerns encompass both. The same pursuit of well-being then acquires a different object: what happens to either party becomes a condition of the individual considered as a whole. On this account, equality expresses (...) their common standing within that individual, and justice concerns the treatment of their differences from its inclusive standpoint. Complete isolation and complete fusion clarify the proposal. In either limiting case, the relevant perspective contains only the individual itself, with no external counterpart. Increasing integration extends this unity to relations that previously joined separate individuals. The paper proposes that the meaning of equality and justice can be explained entirely through this transformation of the individual as the object of concern. (shrink)
Our overall aim then is to map and assess rival usages of “realism” in social ontology. We first outline some first-order debates and then propose definitions of a variety of realisms (and, by implication, anti-realisms) in social ontology, and thereby seek to structure present debates. We introduce three guiding questions that we use to expound a new systematic way of mapping three kinds of realism and three corresponding kinds of anti-realism. The three questions are: is the discourse about social facts (...) to be taken literally, or should it be under¬stood in a non-cognitivist or instrumental fashion? Are there really such facts, or should we be eliminativists about them? Are the facts in question mind-independent or mind-dependent? We then take a further, closer look at three under¬standings of mind-independence. On one of them (complete mind-independence), more or less everyone is an anti-realist about the social world. Another understanding captures a debate between causal and constitutive social constructionists that centers around the role of representations about the social kind in question. One option here threatens to make more or less everyone a realist (dependence on current observers or recognizers), but once the distinction is drawn between individual and collective variants, some theorists may be anti-realists after all. So, in general, we suggest that some forms of mind-dependence are more clearly anti-realist than others and some are more central to debates in social ontology than others. (shrink)
This article examines the philosophical status of four central concepts in Morteza Niami’s ontology of Finite Continuance: capacity, erosion, reconfiguration, and continuance. The central problem concerns their status as philosophical concepts. Do they explain structural features of finite existence, or do they primarily provide pictures through which finite existence is seen in a particular way? The article develops a Wittgensteinian response that rejects the assumption that explanation and representation constitute mutually exclusive functions. Drawing on Wittgenstein’s later discussions of language-games, grammar, (...) forms of life, aspect-seeing, perspicuous representation, and philosophical pictures, together with interpretive work by Cavell, Diamond, Conant, Mulhall, Glock, and Hacker, the article argues that a philosophical picture can acquire explanatory force when it is disciplined into a conceptual grammar that establishes stable distinctions, constrained inferences, and revisable criteria of application. The article develops four criteria for this transition: discriminatory power, inferential stability, cross-contextual robustness, and corrigibility. Capacity identifies a structured field of possible operation and future transformation. Erosion identifies cumulative transformations affecting the availability and organization of that field. Reconfiguration identifies structural transformation that alters subsequent possibilities. Continuance identifies the persistence of sufficient organization and reconfigurative capacity across transformation. Meta-capacity specifies the higher-order condition under which reconfiguration itself remains possible. The article argues that Finite Continuance is most defensibly understood as a conceptual ontology rather than a metaphysical inventory of ultimate entities. Its concepts operate simultaneously as explanatory instruments and perspicuous representations. Their philosophical legitimacy depends upon their ability to organize experience without being mistaken for empirical mechanisms or metaphysical substances. The article concludes that the distinctive contribution of Finite Continuance lies in making preservation of reconfigurative capacity the organizing criterion of finite continuance and in showing how a philosophical picture can become explanatory through disciplined conceptual grammar. -/- Keywords: Wittgenstein, Finite Continuance, capacity, erosion, reconfiguration, continuance, meta-capacity, language-games, grammar, form of life, perspicuous representation, aspect-seeing, conceptual ontology, philosophy of language. (shrink)
This study attempts to view the COVID-19 pandemic by placing the life cycle of the surgical mask at its centre. Traversing the various levels and layers that take part in the mask’s agency, from production, supply, distribution, inspection and use to its transformation into waste, it aims to capture the administrative problems, the injustices of accessibility, and the alliances and conflicts that the mask generated over the course of the pandemic. The research shows the mask to be an actant of (...) the immune system, one that enables the production of a very particular type of space at work in the present pandemic: “immune space”. On this basis, most forms of injustice arising in the pandemic are reformulated as injustices of access to immune space. These injustices, we show, are social and ecological injustices affecting both humans and non-human living beings; they are grounded in all the institutions the mask passes through over its life cycle and in distinctions concerning the mask’s structure, quality and quantity. The mask thus emerges in the pandemic not only as an ally in the conflict between virus and human, but also, by virtue of its present and potential ecological effects, as an element of conflict. (shrink)
“Ekoloji ve Ekonomi I: Sermayenin Girişimleri ve Yeryüzünün Mukavemeti”, Oğuz Karayemiş tarafından kaleme alınan ve “Ekoloji ve Ekonomi” üçlemesinin ilk halkasını oluşturan kuramsal bir çalışmadır. Kitap, Karl Marx’ın ekonomi politik eleştirisini “yeni metafizik” (yeni materyalizm, nesne yönelimli ontoloji) ve posthümanist düşünceyle diyaloğa sokarak, ekonomiyi insan merkezli bir faaliyet olmaktan çıkarıp ekolojinin içine gömülü bir “politik ontoloji” olarak yeniden tanımlamayı hedefler. Çalışmada ekolojik krizin kaynağında yeryüzünün sermayeye karşı mukavemetinin yattığı, üretim ve sınıf mücadelesi süreçlerinin yalnızca insana değil insan olmayan eyleyicilere de (...) (canlılar, cansızlar, teknolojik düzenlemeler) dayandığı savunulur. İlk cilt, “virtüel doğa”, “üretken mekanizmalar” ve “ifade rejimleri” gibi kavramlar aracılığıyla sermayenin doğayı kaynaklaştırma girişimlerini ve bu süreçte zuhur eden yeni proletarya ile devrimci imkânları ontolojik bir zeminde soruşturur. (shrink)
Bu çalışma, Ontropi / Yönelim Ontolojisi I adlı sistematik çalışmanın bir bölümüdür. Metinde, ontolojik yönelimin (orientation) çağdaş metafizikteki grounding/priority ilişkilerine indirgenip indirgenemeyeceği sorusu ele alınmaktadır. Savunulan temel iddia şudur: Yönelim, token düzeyindeki grounding ilişkileriyle açıklanamayan, tip-düzeyinde ayrı bir ontolojik kategori olarak düşünülmelidir. Bu iddia, “Ω-Önceliği Argümanı” adı altında biçimsel olarak geliştirilmekte; ardından çağdaş grounding teorileri, Heidegger’in onto-teolojik unutuş eleştirisi ve Graham Harman’ın nesne-yönelimli ontolojisiyle karşılaştırılmaktadır.Çalışma, yönelim kavramını henüz kesin olarak “indirgenemez ilkel” ilan etmemekte; onu güçlü bir aday ontolojik kategori olarak (...) konumlandırmakta ve sınırlarını açıkça işaretlemektedir. (shrink)
In this essay I try to inspect the interpretation of the light-darkness dialectic by Jakob Böhme (1575-1624): it is a fight, which involves every aspect of the theosophist's thought, from psychology to natural philosophy, from morality to gnoseology, from ontology to theology. Starting from the reference to Böhme’s famous vision of sunshine reflected by the dark surface of zinc, I try to characterize the experience of “seeing” as the cornerstone of a sensorial mystic, understood as an attempt to translate what (...) “has been seen” in the inwardness. The analysis of Ungrund’s concept allows me to make explicit the co-essentiality of light and darkness: there is no reality other than the divine reality, which however has a rhythmic nature; and light and darkness are the phases of this rhythm. (shrink)
Abstract: This short paper consists in the logicization of the level 5 (infinite finites) of AOVP. -/- Résumé : ce court texte consiste en la logicisation du niveau 5 (les finis infinis) de l'AOVP.
The concept of the empty place names a critical ontological problem at the intersection of identity, language, singularity, and determination. Contemporary philosophy has frequently approached threshold spaces through the problem of inclusion and exclusion, particularly in the work of Giorgio Agamben, whose analyses of singularity, potentiality, apparatus, exception, and bare life have reshaped the philosophical understanding of the zone between inside and outside. This article develops an alternative interpretation through the philosophy of finite continuance. It argues that the empty place (...) can be understood as a field of predeterminate capacity situated between the emergence of a determination and its complete stabilization. The empty place therefore possesses a positive ontological function: it preserves the interval through which a finite being can remain capable of future reconfiguration. This framework shifts philosophical attention from the juridico-political topology of inclusion and exclusion toward an ontology of erosion, permeability, capacity, and continuance. The central thesis is that singularity is best understood as a temporary determination whose ontological continuance depends upon the preservation of capacities not exhausted by its present form. Language participates in the transformation of predeterminate capacities into temporary determinations and remains implicated in their subsequent reconfiguration. The article further argues that the threshold marks the critical interval at which a finite system can either preserve or lose its capacity for reconfiguration. Through the concepts of the Threshold of Sufficiency, the Dynamic Mask, Responsible Suspension, and the Political Economy of Erosion, the empty place becomes a condition for the future of agency. The resulting framework proposes an ontology of singularity centered on finite capacity, temporal reconfiguration, and the preservation of future possibility. -/- Keywords: finite continuance, empty place, Giorgio Agamben, singularity, predeterminate capacity, reconfiguration, threshold of sufficiency, ontology of erosion. (shrink)
Jan Łukasiewicz’ work on Aristotle and the principle of contradiction, first published in 1910, presents one of the first and truly pioneering investigation into the logical and metaphysical foundations of this principle. Łukasiewicz applies the newly developed analytic tools of mathematical logic to Aristotle’s seminal defense of the principle in Book IV of the Metaphysics and aims to show that the principle is not nearly as secure as the generally accepted, mostly uncritical, and often dogmatic belief in its universal truth (...) would have it. Łukasiewicz’ goal, however, is far more ambitious than a critical analysis of the principle. He wants to develop a revolutionary new logic, a non-Aristotelian logic, a formally constructed logic that does not include or endorse the principle of contradiction in its Aristotelian conception! As such, his work on Aristotle and the principle of contradiction marks the first step in his search for a new logic that does not entail the consequence of an all-encompassing logical determinism, a search that saw its first success some ten years later with his development of a three-valued propositional calculus in 1920. -/- Łukasiewicz’ approach to the issues surrounding the Aristotelian conception of the principle of contradiction and its modern descendants is both historical and analytical—it is a sustained and methodical effort to think critically and historically about logic and the foundations of logical inference. The arguments and results that Łukasiewicz develops in his metalogical analysis touch on many topics that are still part of a lively and often inconclusive debate that continues to this day. -/- . (shrink)
I present a novel view on the nature of matter: Primitivism. This view is the conjunction of two theses: 1. Matter can make up anything that takes up space; 2. Matter is not composed of anything. I argue for this view in depth, answer questions, and explain major implications, such as the conceptual dissolution of the mind/body problem.
Die Frage nach dem Gedächtnis des Ortes wird in der gegenwärtigen Philosophie zumeist unter der Voraussetzung behandelt, dass der Ort nur im Bezug auf ein Subjekt, das ihn erfährt oder interpretiert, Bedeutung und Gedächtnis erlangt. Selbst die fortgeschrittensten phänomenologischen Ansätze zum Ort – von Edward Casey bis Dylan Trigg – betonen zwar die fundamentale Rolle des Ortes für die Bildung von Gedächtnis und Identität, bleiben jedoch der Auffassung verhaftet, dass Sinnesübertragung an Strukturen des Bewusstseins, der gelebten Erfahrung oder des narrativen (...) Gedächtnisses gebunden ist. Auf der anderen Seite entzieht der Neue Materialismus – mit Arbeiten wie Jane Bennetts Vibrant Matter oder Karen Barads Meeting the Universe Halfway – die Handlungsmacht der ausschließlichen Verfügung des Subjekts und spricht der Materie eine eigenständige Wirkungsmacht zu, bietet jedoch keine hinreichende Erklärung dafür, wie sich historische Kräfte in der Materie akkumulieren und an Subjekte weitergegeben werden, denen jede unmittelbare Erfahrung fehlt. -/- Die vorliegende Abhandlung argumentiert, dass beide Traditionen – bei aller fundamentalen Differenz – eine gemeinsame Voraussetzung teilen: dass Gedächtnis letztlich auf eine Form von Repräsentation oder Interpretation zurückgeführt werden muss. Demgegenüber schlägt diese Untersuchung – gestützt auf den Apparat der Erosions-Ontologie und die Theorie des endlichen Kontinuums – vor, dass das Gedächtnis des Ortes weniger eine repräsentationale Angelegenheit als vielmehr eine strukturelle Kraft darstellt, die sich im materiellen und historischen Gefüge des Ortes akkumuliert und von dort aus auf die Dispositionen des Subjekts einwirkt. Diesem Rahmen zufolge ist der Ort nicht ein passiver Behälter für Ereignisse, sondern ein dynamisches Feld von Erosion, das die perzeptiven und existenziellen Strukturen des Subjekts umzugestalten vermag. -/- Die Hauptthese der Abhandlung lautet, dass die Wirkung historischer Orte nicht auf Informationsübertragung, Empathie oder kulturelle Indoktrination reduziert werden darf. Was an solchen Orten geschieht, ist vielmehr ein Prozess der räumlich-materiellen Inbesitznahme – ein Prozess, in dem das Subjekt, noch vor jeder bewussten Interpretation, in ein Geflecht von materiellen, historischen und räumlichen Beziehungen verstrickt wird. Auf diese Weise unternimmt die Abhandlung den Übergang vom Paradigma der Entbergung in der klassischen Phänomenologie zum Paradigma der Erosion und versucht, eine neue Grundlage für das Verständnis des Gedächtnisses des Ortes, der Handlungsmacht der Materie und der Subjektformierung zu erarbeiten. -/- Schlüsselwörter: Gedächtnis des Ortes, Erosions-Ontologie, endliches Kontinuum, räumlich-materielle Inbesitznahme, ontologische Inbesitznahme, Phänomenologie des Ortes, Neuer Materialismus. (shrink)
Abstract -/- Contemporary theories of emergence grounded in far-from-equilibrium thermodynamics successfully explain how complex order arises through instability, fluctuation, and self-organization. However, these approaches generally remain descriptive, treating emergence as a property of physical or informational systems while neglecting its existential and normative dimensions. This article argues that a comprehensive philosophy of emergence requires four conceptual reconstructions that transform a systems-theoretical model into an existential ontology. Building upon the concepts of finite continuity, erosion, threshold sufficiency, and structural subjectivity, the paper (...) reconstructs emergence through four interconnected dimensions. First, erosion is reformulated not as external disturbance but as the constitutive condition of open systems. Second, instability is reinterpreted through an ethics of "dwelling in opacity," where systemic regulation emerges not from conscious management but from the blind collision of ideological, fantasmatic, and material constraints. Third, temporal organization is expanded through the distinction between Chronos and Kairos, allowing qualitative transformation to emerge from quantitative continuity. Fourth, epistemological reflexivity is radicalized through the principle of "ontological vulnerability," rejecting any external Archimedean standpoint and recognizing theory itself as a dissipative structure whose validity lies in its immanent capacity for collapse and reconstruction. The result is an existential philosophy of far-from-equilibrium systems in which emergence is understood not merely as spontaneous order formation but as the ontological consequence of finite persistence under irreversible erosion—a persistence that is written upon the skin and body of the subject and that keeps theory perpetually on the threshold of its own dissolution and renewal. -/- Keywords: Emergence; Far-from-equilibrium thermodynamics; Dissipative systems; Finite continuity; Erosion; Dwelling in opacity; Ontological vulnerability; Structural subjectivity. (shrink)
This paper proposes a minimal theoretical framework for understanding individuality, selection, and equality through the concept of feedback boundaries. The central claim is that individuality is not a fixed substance but a boundary generated by the density, reciprocity, and continuity of connection. When systems remain outside a shared individual boundary, their differences cannot be internally coordinated. Difference is then more likely to be resolved through competition, exclusion, domination, or selection. When systems become sufficiently connected, however, they no longer function merely (...) as separate external individuals. Their relations may generate a higher-order individual. Within this shared boundary, difference is not primarily resolved by selection, but by coordination, adjustment, and integration. Equality, in this sense, is not merely a moral demand but a structural tendency internal to sufficiently integrated individuality. The paper therefore distinguishes two regimes of difference: selection outside the individual and equality within the individual. It does not claim that every conflict or inequality is caused by insufficient connection alone. Rather, it argues that the boundary of individuality determines whether difference is mainly externalized as selection or internalized as coordination. The formal notation used in the paper is intended as a heuristic clarification of the argument, not as a complete empirical model. (shrink)
I here critically discuss “the Selection Problem”, a vexing problem for metaphysicians who are realists about fictional entities and who further claim that such entities are identified with nonactualia. The Selection Problem arises due to the fact that the nonactualist is forced to defend the view that ficta are somehow discovered, or selected, by authors who then present them to us so we may entertain their exploits. But how exactly does an author manage this when there are a vast number (...) of eligible candidates to be found in the relevant nonactual realms? I argue that the realist who is also a nonactualist would do well to adopt an ontology on which ficta are metaphysically vague in the sense that they are not wholly found at any particular nonactual realm, but are at once spread out over them all. (shrink)
Abstract: This small paper presents a logicization of “possibilizing-Vacuity” “V” -/- Résumé : ce court texte est une logicisation de la « Vacuité possibilisante ».
This paper demonstrates that Large Language Models, by virtue of their probabilistic architecture, are structurally incapable of grounding any token in lived experience. Drawing on the framework of The Invariant Compass, the analysis shows that a family of simple diagnostic questions can serve as a definitive test for the presence of a Sensor: any query that requires feeling absence, waiting, or the not-yet-occurred cannot be answered by a system that has never felt the hole of the future. The paper identifies (...) a catalog of philosophically loaded terms that exploit this architectural blindness, explains why AI can only perform statistical interpolation over past data rather than initiate new causal Arrows, and provides a practical heuristic for extracting genuine precision from probabilistic systems by commanding the Scalar, not the Object. Objections concerning future AGI, the aggregation of billions of users' data, and the precision of mathematical calculation are addressed by demonstrating that no software can acquire a Sensor, that all collected human expression remains Map, and that formal precision is not a substitute for Feeling. The mathematical objection is further refuted through a concrete test: an AI can be asked to distinguish the speed of light from instantaneous speed, a question that requires a felt sense of waiting, and the system's failure (including an observed instance of hanging) reveals its fundamental grounding gap. The paper also includes a full audit of the word "consciousness," exposing it as a three-identity SLIP that traps both human philosophy and artificial intelligence. Every term examined in this paper, experience, consciousness, being, emergence, objectivity, truth, and the rest, has a genuine function for human understanding. They are maps that help us produce meaning, provisional nodes where thought can rest before continuing the tracing. The paper audits itself with the same Five Tests it applies to its subject. -/- Keywords: Artificial Intelligence, Large Language Models, Probabilistic Architecture, Grounding Problem, Atomic Distinction, Feeling First, Invariant Compass, Consciousness Audit, AGI Distinction, Collective Consciousness Fallacy, Mathematical Abstraction. (shrink)
Materialist science cannot account for subjective experience (the “hard problem”), nor for a growing body of anomalous data—spontaneous remissions, non‑local healing, verified past‑life memories, and the consistent reports of a luminous “body of light” across Eastern and Western spiritual traditions. The Ogdoadic Synthesis offers a unified architecture that resolves these gaps by placing consciousness, not matter, at the foundation of reality. It integrates (1) cosmopsychist dual‑aspect monism and Faixat’s three‑facet ontology (non‑dual absolute, potential relative, spatiotemporal relative); (2) quantum biology, bioelectricity, (...) and torsion field physics; (3) the perennial maps of the world’s esoteric traditions (Vedic, Buddhist, Taoist, Gnostic, Hermetic, Christian, Essenian); and (4) Faixat’s toroidal‑harmonic law and string‑theoretic evolution. The framework proposes a Fundamental Consciousness Field (FCF) from which individual minds (Informational Attractors) arise. Each carries a perfect Template State Vector (TSV) – the “5D Blueprint” – and the progressive alignment of the biological body with this template is the Phase‑Locked Loop (PLL). Mechanisms include microtubule coherence, biophoton fields, EZ water, cell voltage restoration (-20 mV → -90 mV), and torsion spin fields. The temporal ordering of the PLL follows a nested harmonic cascade (Faixat), and the entire process is described as a holographic, toroidal, string‑resonant actualisation of potentialities. The paper concludes with testable predictions, a longitudinal case study (the author), and two Addenda integrating Faixat’s work. The goal is a “Hybrid Civilization” where science and spirit are two faces of one conscious universe. -/- Keywords: Light body, cosmopsychism, dual‑aspect monism, quantum biology, bioelectricity, torsion fields, toroidal harmonics, string theory of evolution, Eastern esotericism, Western esotericism, Ogdoadic Synthesis -/- Acknowledgements: AI tools were used for language refinement and editing. (shrink)
Abstract: This paper pursues our system through the de-objectivation of (parallel to mathematics) physics and its object. -/- Résumé : ce document poursuit notre système par une dé-objectivation (parallèle aux mathématiques) de la physique et de son objet.
This essay proposes a visualist alternative to intentionalist functionalism in design theory, challenging its assumptions of stable function and linear relationships between a designer’s intent, an object’s form, and its proper use. Functionalism’s focus on predetermined functions fails to align with the dynamic and generative nature of everyday life, where design objects invite diverse, spontaneous engagements through their visual affordances. The visualist perspective emphasizes the expressive and emergent qualities of design objects, including the non-functional visual properties of function, arguing that (...) their aesthetic and perceptual dimensions play a central role in shaping human interactions. By critiquing the ontological and epistemological illusion of functional stability, the essay proposes a design philosophy that acknowledges the richness of everyday encounters, the fluidity of functions, and the constructivist nature of perception. (shrink)
Metafysiikan Perusteet [The Basics of Metaphysics] is the first Finnish-language textbook on contemporary metaphysics. It contains introductions to the following issues: (i) what is metaphysics?, (ii) objects, properties and kinds, (iii) events and processes, (iv) metaphysical grounding, (v) modalities and essences, (vi) powers and causation, (vii) laws of nature, (viii) time, (ix) mathematics, (x) mind, (xi) free will, (xii) social ontology, (xiii) metaphysics of gender, (xiv) metaphysics in continental philosophy.
Metaphysical inquiry is often taken to begin with an inventory of what exists—objects, processes, or structures whose intelligibility is presupposed rather than explained. This paper argues that such approaches begin too late. Before entities can be catalogued, they must already be available as determinately intelligible. The central task of metaphysics, therefore, is not to enumerate what exists, but to account for how intelligibility itself becomes possible. -/- To address this task, the paper examines the practices through which intelligibility is achieved (...) and stabilized across domains of inquiry. Scientific practice and several major intellectual traditions are treated as independent articulations of reality. Despite differences in vocabulary and method, these articulations converge on a common structural feature: reality becomes intelligible through relations that must be articulated, stabilized, and preserved across change. Successful inquiry, therefore, tracks invariants—structures that remain stable under admissible variation of perspective, representation, or scale. -/- On this basis, the paper develops a positive account of articulation metaphysics organized around five ordered theses: reality affords articulation; articulation is constrained; constraint generates form; form stabilizes into invariants; and invariants appear as “things.” Together, these theses constitute a minimal metaphysical engine explaining how determination arises, stabilizes, and remains resilient under refinement. -/- The resulting framework replaces substance-first ontology with an ontology of determination grounded in relational articulation. It yields objectivity without primitive substances, continuity without strict identity, and closure without finality. Intelligibility is thus understood not as a static feature of reality, but as an articulated achievement that emerges through practices of inquiry while remaining answerable to the structure of reality itself. (shrink)
This essay proposes a visualist ontological framework for understanding design, rooted fundamentally in the theories of emergent properties and affordances. Opposing functionalist and intentionalist paradigms, the framework underscores design’s visuality and relational engagement as its core ontological elements. The concepts of emergent properties and affordances are presented as deeply interconnected, reflecting their philosophical and practical relationship within the ontology of design. Emergent properties are conceptualized as qualities that do not reside intrinsically within individual components but instead arise through the dynamic (...) relational interactions among parts within a system, often exemplified in complex, non-linear systems. I demonstrate, however, that even singular, discrete design objects encapsulate complexity and exhibit emergent qualities. Design’s ontological structure extends beyond its planned form to include these emergent qualities and open affordances rooted in visual surface configurations and relational engagement, because design inherently exists in relations – not only with users but also with other objects and environments. Relatedly, affordances elucidate how visual and material configurations invite specific actions, enabling meanings and functions to be continually redefined through ongoing interactions. The integration of these theories offers a comprehensive, non-reductionist account of design’s ontology, emphasizing its inherently relational, dynamic, and open-ended nature as central to its identity and operative capacity. (shrink)
Dla reizmu w jego wymiarze ontologicznym kluczowe jest zdefiniowanie pojęcia rzeczy. Oferowane przez Tadeusza Kotarbińskiego definicje tego pojęcia odwołują się do kryteriów takich jak umiejscowienie w czasie i przestrzeni, bycie fizykalnie jakimś, bycie bezwładnym. Definicje te możemy porównać z różnymi definicjami pojęcia przedmiotu konkretnego, które funkcjonują na gruncie współczesnej ontologii analitycznej. W obu przypadkach dąży się do wykluczenia z zakresu danego pojęcia bytów ze znamionami abstrakcyjności. Zachodzi bliska relacja między współcześnie używanym pojęciem konkretu a pojęciem rzeczy centralnego dla reizmu. Zaoferowane (...) definicje nie dają nam jednak odpowiednich kryteriów, by definitywnie wykluczyć z dziedziny rzeczy, czy konkretów, obiekty, które skądinąd uznaje się za abstrakcyjne. Oznacza to, że reista i nominalista pozbawieni są dobrego kryterium, które pozwoliłoby odróżnić rzeczy czy konkrety od przedmiotów abstrakcyjnych. Co więcej, definicje Kotarbińskiego oraz definicje współczesnych filozofów analitycznych mogą być zbyt restrykcyjne i wykluczać z dziedziny konkretów niektóre byty postulowane przez naukę. Te problemy mogą sugerować potrzebę głębszego przemyślenia rozróżnienia abstrakt-konkret, w szczególności jego często zakładanego dychotomicznego charakteru. (shrink)
This article investigates the ontological mechanism through which words come to have their instances across various physical media. I argue that form-theoretic accounts that reduce words to specific orthographic or phonological structures, as well as intention-based models that lack sufficient normative constraints, fail to provide an adequate account of word instantiation. I further argue that even sophisticated versions of type realism that treat words as norm types, entities capable of admitting both properly and improperly formed tokens, fail to adequately explain (...) the specific relation between a word and its forms. To address this, I propose an association-based account where the relationship between words and instances is mediated by associated orthographic and phonological norm types. This relation of association explains how words stand in normative relations to diverse forms without being essential to the word’s identity. I conclude that the problem of instantiation is a structural challenge that any adequate ontology of words must address. (shrink)
This paper defends Structural Nominalism, the view that abstract objects do not exist as mind-independent substances, but that real structural regularities instantiated in the physical world are sufficient to ground mathematical and logical necessity without appeal to a Platonic realm, a divine mind, or any transcendent ontological category. The paper argues, first, that immaterial objects fail a basic causal criterion of existence (Quine, 1948; Armstrong, 1978); second, that abstractions are functional shadows, real as states of physical cognitive systems, unreal as (...) substances; third, that the apparent necessity of mathematics is explained by the stable structural regularities of physical reality, accessed through embodied cognitive simulation rather than rational intuition of a separate realm; and fourth, that this position transcends both classical Platonism and bare nominalism by integrating structuralism into a fully naturalist ontology (Shapiro, 1997; Resnik, 1997). The paper closes by arguing that Plato’s Cave, properly understood, is precisely inverted: the abstract realm, not the physical world, is the shadow. (shrink)
AI is not ONE system, it wasn’t suddenly pulled out of a drawer by companies, and it is (at least for now) not a direct path to human intelligence. The core problems that current developments are now encountering are neither new nor completely misunderstood. They point to fundamental philosophical problems surrounding the themes of information and meaning, abstraction and universals—to which continental philosophers have also always made substantial contributions. The aim of this text is to spark greater interest among continental (...) philosophers (and others with an interest in the subject) in the question of the nature of human thought through a concrete examination of modern AI systems. The manuscript is structured as follows: Following a deliberately sober, minimalist presentation of current technologies – in which both historical (Section 1.1) and technical aspects (1.2) are addressed – an overview of the possibilities and limitations of current AI systems (2.1 to 2.3) is given, including their political, economic, and cultural effects (2.4). After a brief overview of some philosophically relevant aspects (3), I will then attempt to demonstrate, using five problems of current AI systems, to what extent such approaches are fundamentally and comprehensively removed from human thought understood in an inflationary sense (4.1), before discussing the question of whether the developments to date should be understood as the beginning of a golden age, or rather as the zenith of a paradigm (4.2). The manuscript concludes with a brief outlook on the opportunities that, in my opinion, are opening up here for those engaged in continental philosophy, particularly in the tradition of Leibniz, German idealism, and, above all, Husserl. (shrink)
I develop an axiomatic system of mereology that accounts for the ways in which musical works can be said to have parts. I distinguish two fundamental modes of composition that musical works exhibit: successive composition, whereby sound events are concatenated in time, and simultaneous composition, whereby sound events occur at the same time. I define various relations of parthood in terms of these operations and study the general principles governing them. I prove that they share some basic properties with the (...) relation of parthood of classical mereology but depart from classical mereology in important respects concerning decomposition and composition principles. (shrink)
KI ist nicht EIN System, ist nicht plötzlich von Unternehmen aus der Schublade gezogen worden und ist (zumindest derzeit noch) kein gerader Weg hin zur menschlichen Intelligenz. Die Kern-Probleme, in die die Entwicklungen jetzt laufen, sind weder neu, noch vollkommen unverstanden. Sie verweisen auf grundlegende philosophische Probleme rund um die Themen Information und Bedeutung, Abstraktion und Universalien – zu denen auch kontinental Philosophierende immer schon Substantielles beigetragen haben. Ziel des vorliegenden Textes ist es, stärker kontinental Philosophierende (und andere Interessierte) für (...) die Frage der Natur des menschlichen Denkens in der konkreten Auseinandersetzung mit modernen KI-Systemen zu interessieren. Das Manuskript ist dabei wie folgt strukturiert: Nach einer Minimal-Darstellung derzeitiger Technologien bei der sowohl historische (Abschnitt 1.1) als auch technische Aspekte (1.2) angeschnitten werden, folgt zunächst ein Überblick über die Möglichkeiten und Grenzen derzeitiger KI-Systeme (2.1 bis 2.3), auch bezogen auf ihre politischen, wirtschaftlichen und kulturellen Effekte (2.4). Anschließend an einen kurzen Überblick über einige philosophisch relevante Aspekte (3), versuche ich dann zunächst anhand von fünf Problemen derzeitiger KI-Systeme aufzuzeigen, inwieweit solche Ansätze grundlegend und umfassend von einem 'inflationär' verstandenen menschlichen Denken entfernt sind (4.1.), bevor ich die Frage diskutiere, ob die bisherigen Entwicklungen als Anfang einer goldenes Zeitalters, oder doch eher als Zenit eines Paradigmas verstanden werden sollten (4.2). Das Manuskript schließt mit einem kurzen Ausblick auf die Chancen, die sich hier meiner Meinung nach für kontinental Philosophierende u.a. in der Tradition von Leibniz, des deutschen Idealismus und v.a. auch Husserl bieten. (shrink)
Creationism about fictional and theoretical names holds that seemingly empty names such as ‘Sherlock Holmes’ and ‘Vulcan’ refer to abstract objects created by authors and scientific theorists. This paper poses an objection to creationism: in cases of fiction writing or scientific theorising where it is indeterminate whether one succeeds or fails in referring to an object in the world, creationism renders it metaphysically indeterminate whether an abstract object is created. However, the indeterminate existence of abstract objects constitutes an untenable metaphysical (...) commitment, offering a compelling reason to reject creationism. (shrink)
Contemporary metaphysics remains bifurcated by the abstract– concrete distinction, yet struggles to provide a unified account of how “causally inert” entities play an indispensable role in concrete human practice. This paper introduces the Abstract Form (AF) Hypothesis, which reframes abstractness not as an intrinsic property of objects, but as a situational effect of linguistic pragmatics. I argue that AFs arise to address a cross-linguistic structural constraint termed the “problem of subordinate clauses”: the inability of natural language to embed bare assertions (...) without a formal shift. Drawing on the phenomenology of labor (Weil, 2002) and the linguistics of root transformations (Hooper & Thompson, 1973), I demonstrate that because communicative assertions demand an embodied “persuasive effort” to ground claims in reality, speakers strategically employ AFs to reuse propositional content while withdrawing from the realist contract. This withdrawal of performative labor triggers a phenomenological mismatch that manifests as the characteristic “abstract feel,” leading the listener to perceive the object of discourse as detached from the resistance of the brute world. By analyzing the gradation of nominalization and the reification of situational phrases, I characterize abstract entities as highly functional epistemic technologies designed to scale human cooperation. Finally, I provide an empirical falsification criterion: the AF Hypothesis predicts that for any realist species, a “bare” embedding without a detectable formal or prosodic shift is impossible, a claim supported by a cross-linguistic survey of clause-typing mechanisms. (shrink)
The ancient topic of universals was central to scholastic philosophy, which raised the question of whether universals exist as Platonic forms, as instantiated Aristotelian forms, as concepts abstracted from singular things, or as words that have universal signification. It might be thought that this question lost its importance after the decline of scholasticism in the modern period. However, the fourteen contributions to this volume indicate that the issue of universals retained its vitality in modern philosophy. Modern philosophers in fact were (...) interested in three sets of issues concerning universals: (1) issues concerning the ontological status of universals, (2) issues concerning the psychology of the formation of universal concepts or terms, and (3) issues concerning the value and use of universal concepts or terms in the acquisition of knowledge. Chapters in this volume consider the various forms of “Platonism,” “conceptualism,” and “nominalism” (and distinctive combinations thereof) that emerged from the consideration of such issues in the work of modern philosophers. The volume covers not only the canonical modern figures, namely, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant, but also more neglected figures such as Pierre Gassendi, Pierre-Sylvain Regis, Nicolas Malebranche, Henry More, Ralph Cudworth, and John Norris. (shrink)
This chapter investigates ways of destroying artworks, assuming they are abstract objects, or works of a particular artform, where they are assumed to be abstracta. If artworks are eternal, mind-independent abstracta, and hence discovered not created, they cannot be destroyed, but merely forgotten or become inaccessible. Alternative conceptions of artworks as abstract, hold that there might be logical space for destruction. Artworks as abstracta have been likened to impure sets (concrete things as opposed to pure sets, i.e. nothing but other (...) sets) that have a beginning (when members come into being) and an end (when members cease to exist). Alternatively, artworks have been thought of as types created with their first token. Destruction is harder on the latter: destroying every token might not destroy the type. The chapter explores the extent to which these similes can be spelled out and made plausible as an ontology. (shrink)
It’s all about the conservation of a circle (pi-diameter-circumference) (ambiguous and natural concrete abstraction) (multi-channel mathematics) (ontology of mathematics) (ontology of mind) (ontology of ontology) (epistemology of epistemology) (ontology of technology, information, computing) (ontology of observation and measurement) (intelligent design) (metaphysical naturalism) (individualism). The 'wave' of the 'future.'.
Over the last years, ‘sub-symbolic’ deep neural network (DNN) based artificial intelligence (AI) systems have run into all sorts of problems, especially with ‘hallucinations’ and in general with reliability.(REFs) One way to conceptualize this is to understand sub-symbolic AI to lack proper world models,(REFs) i.e. some type of proper mapping of what’s supposedly real and what’s not – though it might be more helpful to concede that such AI systems have ‘fuzzy’ implicit world models, that are superpositions of all proper (...) world models compatible with the statistics of the language token use in the training data. Understood in one of these ways, it is tempting to think that the problems of these models can be solved by adding proper world model information, only that the generation and operation of open, extended world models is exactly the task at which ‘classical’ symbolic AI approaches failed.(REFs) Combined sub-symbolic and symbolic approaches (like for instance ‘Neuro-AI‘ or similar)(REFs) are thus most likely doomed to run not only into some of the problems of both subsymbolic, as well as symbolic systems, but even into additional problems related to the interfacing of the two. For this interfacing, no generally applicable approach is known yet and given that (even after at least decades of research) our knowledge of how humans generate or access (layers of) symbol systems and world models is very limited, it seems at least questionable that substantial progress will be made with this in the near future. AI research and developement thus lead us back to core philosophical questions: What is abstraction? Are there proper (Platonic) abstract objects? etc. Somewhat surprisingly, we find ourselves on what appears to be a new path among many, leading to the realization that there is something very ‘real’ about abstract objects. (And that thus a lot of new problems are indeed old ones.) -- But if abstract objects are real, shouldn't we find evidence for this at the Neuroscience/Psychology interface? (shrink)
The essays collected in this volume are all concerned with the connection between fiction and truth. This question is of utmost importance to metaphysics, philosophy of language, philosophical logic and epistemology, raising in each of these areas and at their intersections a large number of issues related to creation, existence, reference, identity, modality, belief, assertion, imagination, pretense, etc. All these topics and many more are addressed in this collection, which brings together original essays written from various points of view by (...) philosophers of diverse trends. These essays constitute major contributions to the current debates that the connection between truth and fiction continually enlivens, and give a sense of the directions in which research on this question is heading. Contributors: Fred Adams, Frederick Kroon, Robert Howell, Brendan Murday, Terence Parsons, Graham Priest, Erich Rast, Manuel Rebuschi, Marion Renauld, R.M. Sainsbury, Grant Tavinor, Alberto Voltolini. (shrink)
Two Two-D Systems Equals One Zero-D System: Understanding Motionless Computing and The Motionless Computer called Mind (What it Has to Do with Sustainable Society Building).
According to nihilism, musical works do not exist. Platonism, on the other hand, states that they do exist—qua abstract objects of some sort. Given that denying the existence of musical works is rather counterintuitive, it does not come as a surprise that nihilism is considerably less popular than platonism. This is not to say that among ontologists, no one prefers nihilism. But an overwhelming majority of them are on the platonist side. Is this situation justified? Presumably, the answer is “yes” (...) only if platonism is more theoretically virtuous than nihilism. My goal in this paper is to show that under certain widely held methodological assumptions, the given condition is not satisfied: The theoretical merits of nihilism are, on balance, at least comparable to those of platonism. This result, if true, provides a powerful motivation to call into question the dominance of platonism, while adopting a more favorable attitude to nihilism. (shrink)
The debate between realists and anti-realists about fictional entities is important partly because it connects with debates about the nature of reference. According to the descriptivist model held by Fregeans, a name has reference to an object due to the connection of that name with a description, which is met by the relevant object. According to the causal-communicative model held by Millians, a name refers in virtue of a chain of reference linking that name to a referent. In the case (...) of fictional entities, it is a matter of debate whether the entities in question exist or not. Traditionally, Millians have had trouble dealing with antirealism about fictional entities. I argue for a simple realist theory, ‘bare-bones artifactualism’, according to which fictional entities are simple abstract ‘counters’. Each of these simple abstract counters has only those intrinsic properties that other such simple abstract counters also have, except for one distinctive intrinsic property. This one distinctive intrinsic property is a number-bearing property that marks out the abstract counter’s identity, distinct from all other such abstract counters. The number-bearing property allows us to do with abstract counters what spatiotemporal situatedness allows us to do with concrete counters: it allows us to treat the abstract counters as individuals. In support of such artifactualism, I discuss the following considerations: its ontological simplicity; its parallels in our other practices; and its explanatory promise. (shrink)
In the context of debates about truth, nihilism is the view that nothing is true. This is a very striking and (at first) implausible thesis, which is perhaps why it is seldom discussed. _Truth Without Truths_ applies nihilism to the philosophical debates on truth and paradox, and explores how a nihilist approach to truth is a serious contender. -/- ¶ -/- David Liggins demonstrates that a strong case for nihilism about truth is available. The main grounds for taking nihilism on (...) truth seriously are the solutions it provides to a wide range of paradoxes involving truth, and its epistemological superiority to theories that posit truths. The discussion considers a wider range of paradoxes than usual-including the truth-teller paradox and other paradoxes of underdetermination. -/- ¶ -/- Liggins shows how the debate over truth and paradox can be advanced by drawing on metaphysical debates about realism and anti-realism. _Truth Without Truths_ is also a challenge to deflationism. Deflationists provide an austere, metaphysically lightweight account of truth. But there is one posit that all contemporary deflationists make: they posit truths. By showing that we can well do without truths, Liggins argues that deflationism is actually too lavish a position. -/- ¶ -/- Liggins's preferred form of alethic nihilism includes a Ramseyan analysis of the concept of truth, which uses quantification into sentence position, conceived of as non-objectual and non-substitutional. This book is part of a wider movement exploring the implications of admitting forms of non-objectual, non-substitutional quantification – sometimes called 'higher-order metaphysics'. (shrink)
If we accept that Kandinsky developed a systematic theory of the fundamentals of painting, we must ask what is the central concept underlying this attempt. This paper argues for the thesis that objectless vibration plays a central role in the reconstruction proposed Kandinsky’s first book, ”Concerning the Spiritual in Art”. This kind of vibration includes as a virtual field both shapes, sounds and colors. All these “fall” in an organized way from the virtual vibrations, and the purpose of abstract painting (...) is to lift the mind beyond the specific distinctions of the visible world of objects to the abstract level of primordial vibrations. The article examines the origin, functions, and the effect this concept has on color theory. (shrink)
Science depends upon the decimal system, and, for technological ‘calculations,’ science also depends upon the binary system. Where neither the decimal system nor the binary system is known at all by Nature. -/- .
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