This paper presents a multi-faceted critique of the Modal Ontological Argument (MOA), focusing on its semantic and epistemic weaknesses. The analysis identifies a dual failure within the argument's structure. First, logically, the MOA fails because it treats "necessary existence" as a first-order predicate. This results in an ill-typed application within standard Kripke semantics and constitutes a misuse of S5 modal operators. Second, epistemologically, the argument engages in circular reasoning by embedding the conclusion (necessary existence) within the initial definition of a (...) "Maximally Great Being" (MGB) and assuming the coherence of MGB's properties without independent justification. The argument is also vulnerable to the logical symmetry problem, where the counter-argument ("Possibly an MGB does not exist") is structurally equipollent. In conclusion, the MOA is not a pure logical proof; rather, it is a formalization of premise-dependent metaphysical assumptions and thus fails to uniquely establish God's existence as a necessary truth. (shrink)

This paper is an introduction to the strictly minimalist ontology that derives from one primordial act: the distinguishing pure non-being (0) and the first admissible consistency - being (1). Once the difference is noticed - without presupposing space, time, laws, or an external observer – it in the proposed order generates curiosity, complexification, identity, mortality-anxiety (fear), binding (love or connection), and intelligence in the exact order. The model tries to explain existence without relying on abstract ideals (Plato) (...) or physical matter, but it still fits well with ideas from Hegel, Heidegger, and modern set theory (like Badiou’s work). (shrink)

Rowe has recently argued that pure risk of harm cannot itself be a harm. I respond to Rowe and argue that given an appropriate understanding of objective probabilities, pure objective risk of harm can itself be a harm.

In a radical departure from background-dependent physics, the Pure Monist Formulation (PMF) eliminates all prior geometric structure, positing a single complex scalar field Ψ as the sole ontological substrate. Spacetime, particles, and forces are not assumed but emerge from the field’s self-organization. Geometry exists only where coherence is present; where coherence vanishes, the metric is undefined (Definition Zero), resolving the hidden crypto-dualism embedded in General Relativity, Quantum Field Theory, and String Theory. -/- The framework is presented in two companion (...) manuscripts. The Loom of Being: A Philosophical Defense of the Pure Monist Formulation traces the historical persistence of background assumptions—from Newton’s absolute space through modern field theories—and shows how these assumptions manifest as unresolved tensions across the measurement problem, the hard problem of consciousness, cosmological anomalies, and quantum entanglement. Using the metaphor of a cosmic loom, the paper interprets matter as stable knots, forces as geometric tensions, and entanglement as fiber coincidence, while identifying structural—not mystical—convergences with non-dual traditions grounded in shared topology rather than metaphysics. -/- The companion technical work, The Topological Genesis of Mass and Geometry: Derivations in the Pure Monist Formulation, provides the mathematical architecture. Stable fold configurations of Ψ pack at golden-ratio (ϕ) separations, inducing an E₈ lattice in eight dimensions. Projection via the Elser–Sloane quasicrystal yields the Standard Model gauge group SU(3) × SU(2) × U(1) as the unique residual symmetry. From this geometric scaffold, 45 physical quantities are derived with zero free parameters, including the fine-structure constant; strong and weak couplings; all quark and lepton masses; complete CKM and PMNS mixing matrices; CP-violating phases; neutrino mass scale and Majorana nature; the muon g-2 anomaly as topological strain; proton spin partition via golden-ratio angular momentum; and cosmological dynamics. The theory predicts a dark-sector attractor with equation of state w ≈ −0.976 and derives a geometric boost factor √(1 + ϕ⁻⁴) ≈ 1.0705, resolving the Hubble tension with a predicted local expansion rate H₀ ≈ 72.15 km/s/Mpc. Special relativity emerges as phonon dynamics in the fold lattice, while quantum no-signaling follows from golden-ratio incommensurability. -/- Framed as a constraint geometry, the formulation specifies the unique fixed points any consistent dynamics must occupy. Twenty-one explicit falsification protocols accompany the derivations, placing the theory in direct experimental jeopardy. Together, the manuscripts offer both a new physical foundation and a new paradigm for theoretical discovery, deriving the parameters of nature from pure structure and calling for decisive empirical confrontation. (shrink)

This article explores a fundamental discrepancy between formal syntax and semantic truth by extending Nelson Goodman’s "New Riddle of Induction" into the domain of mathematical undecidability. While Goodman’s original paradox relies on temporal boundaries (e.g., the year 2100) to define gruesome predicates like "grue," this study introduces a different logical boundary: the undecidability of Diophantine equations within a formal theory T. Through a series of examples ranging from historical mysteries (the 1924 Everest expedition) to second-order logic and Peano Arithmetic, we (...) demonstrate that a decidable predicate (such as "is an even number") can be formally equivalent and semantically synonymous with a "gruesome" predicate (such as K) that is structurally undecidable. We show that the undecidability of an external proposition is mechanically transmitted to the predicate, creating an "epistemic black box" that the formal syntax of the theory is inherently unable to open. The analysis reveals that purely formalist systems are "blind" to this identity, failing to distinguish between knowledge and ignorance. We conclude that the collapse of the distinction between decidable and undecidable synonyms necessitates a return to an Aristotelian logical framework. By grounding predicates in the nature and essence of the subject rather than in mere symbolic manipulation, Aristotelian logic provides a vital safeguard against the semantic infection of gruesome predicates, restoring the stability of meaning within formal systems. -/- . (shrink)

A book review of The Michel Henry Reader, edited by Scott Davidson and Frédéric Seyler.

This paper presents a framework for classifying pure concepts — irreducible building blocks of thought, where true irreducibility entails universality — according to two dimensions: comprehensibility and possibility. A concept is comprehensible if it can be deployed productively in combination with other concepts to extend thought or make new distinctions; isolated use, if demonstrated, would count equally. A concept is possible if it exists as a primitive in the structure of reality, appears in compounds that can be experienced, or (...) can be derived necessarily from concepts that meet either condition. Crossing these dimensions produces four logical combinations, three of which are meaningful. Case 1, comprehensible and possible, contains the familiar primitives underpinning logic and mathematics. Case 2, incomprehensible but possible, accommodates real structural features of the world that exceed human cognition — its non-emptiness cannot be established, but neither can it be ruled out, since any demonstration of its emptiness would require confirming that every real feature of the world falls within human cognitive reach. Case 3, comprehensible but impossible, appears to be empty. No truly irreducible primitive has been found that is both comprehensible and impossible. This paper argues the emptiness of Case 3 is not coincidental, definitional, or an artefact of the framework's construction, but necessary. Pure concepts are the mind's simplest interpretive grip on real structure — not arbitrary, but shaped by and responsive to what the world delivers. A concept with no purchase on real structure cannot become a stable cognitive tool and therefore cannot become comprehensible. If the hypothesis holds, three consequences follow: among comprehensible concepts, impossibility is always compound; comprehensibility is indirect evidence of possibility; and human cognition is bounded by reality but not exhaustive of it. (shrink)

In this article I argue for two closely related conclusions: one concerned more narrowly with the internal consistency of G. A. Cohen's theorizing about justice and the unique rhetoric in which it is couched, the other connected to a more sweeping set of recommendations about how theorizing on justice is most promisingly undertaken. First, drawing on a famous insight of G. E. Moore, I argue that although the (Platonic) purity of Cohenian justice provides Cohen a platform from which to put (...) some extremely challenging criticisms to Rawls and Rawlsian liberals, at the same time it generates a sort of self-referential paradox for many of the theses about the concept of justice to which Cohen himself is committed. I go on to conclude, using Rawls's theory of justice as a model, that it would serve political philosophy well to conceive of justice with less purity than Cohen conceives of it. (shrink)

This paper argues that mathematics cannot be regarded as either a mere invention or a purely hypothetico-deductive enterprise. By extending Goodman’s “grue” problem into the mathematical domain, it is shown that definitional interequivalence between predicates does not preserve epistemic properties such as decidability. Even when two predicates are formally interdefinable, only one may be epistemically admissible within a consistent formal system. This constraint reveals that mathematical language is not a free invention but is shaped by deeper semantic and computational necessities. (...) Mathematics thus occupies a unique epistemological position: it is a discipline in which formal equivalence does not entail epistemic equivalence, and where the very possibility of truth and knowledge is conditioned by the structure of the system itself. (shrink)

Man, in the Heraclitean principle of change, is an embodiment of continuity and discontinuity. To what end man’s being transcends to, is an interrogative of important discourse in this paper. Does Man flux from life to death; in nothingness, and from death, in nothingness, to life in somethingness? What does it mean to be human, to die and to experience change and human transcendence? The frequent nature of death, the death of loved ones, colleagues and friends elicit lamentations and (...) sorrows, but more importantly, it expresses human incapacity, fear of the unknown, lack of knowledge of death, and of what it means to die. Such attitude or confusion, may have informed the interrogative of Job (14:14): If man dies shall he live again? It also agitates the triad; if a man lives to die, does he die to live? If God is life, is God death also? If life is a means to an end, is death the end? (Adadevo, 2008; 38). These interrogatives exemplify the character and paradox of human existence; the more the knowledge of man about man, the more Man understands that he knows little about his being. It is argued here that, as a being that encapsulate change, discontinuity and continuity, man’s dissolution in death is not an external and public fact that creates a sense of loss and sadness to humanity, but an internal possibility of his being. It is the fulfillment of the Man project of self-liberation, self-transcendence, and a process of surpassing Man’s existential condition. We shall argue further that, in death, man ceases to be the impersonal social being among beings and has freed himself from the servitude of the anonymous “they” and thereby opened himself to his own most potentiality for being. In birth, there is the change of non-being to being, of nothingness to somethingness (somaticity), then to pure being after death; to a spiritual reality. A conclusion is argued that, in death, Man further becomes the most vitalizing fact of life and the cardinal indicator of authentic selfhood. (shrink)

In this paper, we argue that our moral concern for future well-being should reduce over time due to important practical considerations about how humans interact with spacetime. After surveying several of these considerations (around equality, special duties, existential contingency, and overlapping moral concern) we develop a set of core principles that can both explain their moral significance and highlight why this is inherently bound up with our relationship with spacetime. These relate to the equitable distribution of (1) moral concern (...) in a universe that we can only causally affect in one temporal direction; (2) access to the benefits from using spacetime as a resource; and (3) the burdens of care given (1) and (2). We conclude by considering the practical implications of our argument and find that, while it is often assumed that a preference for present over future well-being weakens the case for existential risk mitigation, this likely is not the case. (shrink)

Deleuze argued that a fundamental mutation in the concept of time occurred in Kant. In antiquity, the concept of time was subordinated to the concept of movement: time was a ‘measure’ of movement. In Kant, this relation is inverted: time is no longer subordinated to movement but assumes an autonomy of its own: time becomes "the pure and empty form" of everything that moves and changes. What is essential in the theory of time is not the distinction between objective (...) ‘clock time’ (or physical time) and the subjective experience of ‘time consciousness,’ since both of them measure movements, whether the movement of extensive objects or intensive states. What is fundamental is rather the relation between time and movement, since time can only assume its own concept when it ceases to be subordinate to movement, whether that movement is objective or subjective. This article examines how Kant inverted the relation between time and movement, and how Deleuze’s own theory of time builds on Kant’s revolution and extends it further. (shrink)

Pure mathematical truths are commonly thought to be metaphysically necessary. Assuming the truth of pure mathematics as currently pursued, and presupposing that set theory serves as a foundation of pure mathematics, this article aims to provide a metaphysical explanation of why pure mathematics is metaphysically necessary.

This paper develops a critical experiment that recasts ontological existence schemata in categorical terms. We ask when a functorial “index of ways of being” comes not from many unrelated lists but from a single universal source (with strict or weakened representability). This yields a two–layer reading: a cataphatic layer, where attributes are the natural, lawlike manifestations of the source across contexts; and an immanent–apophatic layer, where the source’s reflexive self–structure modulates every manifestation yet resists total capture. We add a (...) disciplined treatment of omniscience. Modeled as a modality, it collapses knowledge extensionally at a stage (everything true there is “known” and known to be known) but neither produces a single internal statement of global collapse nor an algorithmic method for extracting witnesses to truth. From this, we obtain a price tag for constitutive realist self–communication claims (e.g., "Jesus is God" read in–language as an identification of a designated locus with the universal source): internally, such claims require strength beyond purely finitary reasoning, or else call for strong structural assumptions or a richer ambient in which the identification holds by design. The stance is exploratory rather than doctrinal. We do not settle metaphysics; we map formal feasibility, mark theorem–backed limits, and make explicit the extra commitments—computational or structural—by which a regulative horizon is upgraded to constitutive realism. (shrink)

In the first part I argue that Buddhism and Hinduism can be unified by a Pure Consciousness thesis, which says that the nature of ultimate reality is an unconditioned and pure consciousness and that the phenomenal world is a mere appearance of pure consciousness. In the second part I argue that the Pure Consciousness thesis can be supported by an argument from quantum physics. According to our best scientific theories, the fundamental nature of reality consists of (...) quantum fields, and it seems that quantum fields have merely particle-like appearances—particles seem to be mere epiphenomena. This interpretation can be generalized. There appear to be individual entities, small and large, and their ontological reality is precisely what it appears to be—they are mere appearances. (shrink)

W. V. Quine famously defended two theses that have fallen rather dramatically out of fashion. The first is that intensions are “creatures of darkness” that ultimately have no place in respectable philosophical circles, owing primarily to their lack of rigorous identity conditions. However, although he was thoroughly familiar with Carnap’s foundational studies in what would become known as possible world semantics, it likely wouldn’t yet have been apparent to Quine that he was fighting a losing battle against intensions, due in (...) large measure to developments stemming from Carnap’s studies and culminating in the work of Kripke, Hintikka, and Bayart. These developments undermined Quine’s crusade against intensions on two fronts. First, in the context of possible world semantics, intensions could after all be given rigorous identity conditions by defining them (in the simplest case) as functions from worlds to appropriate extensions, a fact exploited to powerful and influential effect in logic and linguistics by the likes of Kaplan, Montague, Lewis, and Cresswell. Second, the rise of possible world semantics fueled a strong resurgence of metaphysics in contemporary analytic philosophy that saw properties and propositions widely, fruitfully, and unabashedly adopted as ontological primitives in their own right. This resurgence — happily, in my view — continues into the present day. -/- For a time, at any rate, Quine experienced somewhat better success with his second thesis: that higher-order logic is, at worst, confused and, at best, a quirky notational alternative to standard first-order logic. However, Quine notwithstanding, a great deal of recent work in formal metaphysics transpires in a higher-order logical framework in which properties and propositions fall into an infinite hierarchy of types of (at least) every finite order. Initially, the most philosophically compelling reason for embracing such a framework since Russell first proposed his simple theory of types was simply that it provides a relatively natural explanation of the paradoxes. However, since the seminal work of Prior there has been a growing trend to consider higher-order logic to be the most philosophically natural framework for metaphysical inquiry, many of the contributors to this volume being among the most important and influential advocates of this view. Indeed, this is now quite arguably the dominant view among formal metaphysicians. -/- In this paper, and against the current tide, I will argue in §1 that there are still good reasons to think that Quine’s second battle is not yet lost and that the correct framework for logic is first-order and type-free — properties and propositions, logically speaking, are just individuals among others in a single domain of quantification — and that it arises naturally out of our most basic logical and semantical intuitions. The data I will draw upon are not new and are well-known to contemporary higher-order metaphysicians. However, I will try to defend my thesis in what I believe is a novel way by suggesting that these basic intuitions ground a reasonable distinction between “pure” logic and non-logical theory, and that Russell-style semantic paradoxes of truth and exemplification arise only when we move beyond the purely logical and, hence, do not of themselves provide any strong objection to a type-free conception of properties and propositions. -/- Most of my arguments in §1 are largely independent of any specific account of the nature of properties and propositions beyond their type-freedom. However, I will in addition argue that there are good reasons to take propositions, at least, to be very fine-grained. My arguments are thus bolstered significantly if it can be shown that there are in fact well-defined examples of logics that are not only type-free but which comport with such a conception of propositions. It is the purpose of §2 to lay out a logic of this sort in some detail, drawing especially upon work by George Bealer and related work of my own. With the logic in place, it will be possible to generalize the line of argument noted above regarding Russell-style paradoxes and, in §3, apply it to two propositional paradoxes — the Prior-Kaplan paradox and the Russell-Myhill paradox — that are often taken to threaten the sort of account developed here. (shrink)

The essay studies Aristotle’s critique of Parmenides in the light of the Heideggerian account of Platonic-Aristotelian metaphysics as an approach to being in terms of beings. Aristotle’s critique focuses on the presuppositions of the Parmenidean thesis of the unity of being. It is argued that a close study of the presuppositions of Aristotle’s own critique reveals an important difference between the Aristotelian metaphysical framework and the Parmenidean “protometaphysical” approach. The Parmenides fragments indicate being as such in the (...) sense of the pure, undifferentiated “is there” —as the intelligible accessibility of meaningful reality to thinking, prior to its articulation into determinate beings. For Aristotle, by contrast, “being itself” has no other plausible meaning than “being-something-determinate as such”, which itself remains equivocal. In this sense, Aristotle can indeed be said to conceive being in terms of beings, as the being-ness of determinate beings. (shrink)

This paper investigates two assumptions of the exponential discounted utility theory (EDU) to which Callender draws our attention: namely that we can cleanly distinguish pure from impure temporal preferences, and that past discounting can be ignored. Drawing on recent empirical work in this area, we argue that in so far as one might have thought that past-directed preferences are more pure than future ones, then there is evidence that people’s pure preferences (in so far as we can (...) make sense of that notion) show more interpersonal variation than has previously been thought. (shrink)

Kant’s metaphilosophy has three main parts: (1) an essentialist project (“What is philosophy?”); (2) a methodological project (“How do we do philosophy?”); and (3) a taxonomic project (“What are the different parts of philosophy, and how are they related?”). This paper focuses on the third project. In particular, it explores one of the most intriguing yet puzzling aspects of Kant’s philosophy, viz. the relationship between what Kant calls ‘pure’ philosophy vs. ‘applied’, ‘empirical’ or what we can broadly refer to (...) as ‘impure’ philosophy. (As we shall see, in order to be able to address this third project, we shall also need to examine the other two projects in detail.) My plan is as follows. First, I discuss four main areas of pure vs. impure philosophy: (i) ‘pure logic’ vs. ‘applied logic’; (ii) ‘rational psychology’ vs. ‘empirical psychology’; (iii) ‘pure metaphysics of nature’ vs. ‘physics’ and (iv) ‘pure morality’ or a ‘metaphysics of morals’ vs. ‘moral anthropology’, ‘practical anthropology’ or ‘applied moral philosophy’. Based on this, I identify four key differences between pure and impure philosophy. Second, I critically examine four different readings of Kant’s views about the status of ‘impure’ philosophy: (a) that it is not genuine philosophy; (b) that it is bad or inferior philosophy; (c) that it is instrumentally valuable; and (d) that it constitutes an indispensable part of Kant’s philosophy, both in a theoretical and practical sense. I argue that Kant is best interpreted as endorsing readings (c) and (d). Third, I offer some concluding remarks. (shrink)

Several areas of welfare economics seek to evaluate states of affairs as a function of interpersonally comparable individual utilities. The aim is to map each state of affairs onto a vector of individual utilities, and then to produce an ordering of these vectors that can be represented by a mathematical function assigning a real number to each. When this approach is used in intertemporal contexts, a central theoretical question concerns the evaluative weight to be applied to utility coming at different (...) times. This question concerns the rate of pure time preference, which is one key determinant of the social discount rate. This article argues that the standard philosophical account of pure time preference is mistaken, because it ascribes to economists a methodological commitment they need not, and often do not, accept. This in turn undercuts the most common philosophical objection to pure time preference, which traces at least to Rawls’s A Theory of Justice. The article then evaluates three further objections to pure time preference, concluding that it might still be defensible under certain circumstances. The article closes by articulating a final argument that is suggested by the “Social, Economic and Ethical Concepts and Methods” chapter of the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report. If this further argument is sound, it would constitute a decisive objection to pure time preference as it currently figures in much intertemporal welfare economics. (shrink)

​PURE presents an ontology of reality as sustained relational possibility, grounded in the incoherence of absolute nothingness as a total state. Because the enabling act of alternativity precludes nothingness from possibility space, possibility is necessary as the primitive condition for any “could be,” while creation remains a contingent gift. Real alternativity demands an irreducibly triune grammar: Openness (the availability of alternatives), Coherence (the reception into stable form), and Prerogative (the actability of selection and renewal). These are not separable components (...) but mutually implicative moments of one unified act: Openness-in-Coherence-and-Prerogative. From this grammar, the physical structure of the universe emerges not as a container of objects, but as the sediment of the Act itself. In this framework, Time is the variable pacing of becoming ($\tau$), shaped by the Cost of Being—the structural burden of maintaining finite form against entanglement. Gravity is reinterpreted as Relational Inertia: the geometric curvature caused not merely by mass, but by the accumulated history of coherence and the Counterfactual Weight ($W_{cf}$) of foreclosed alternatives. Quantum mechanics reveals the tension between the manifold's Total Capacity and the observer's finite load, resolving the vacuum energy discrepancy ($\Lambda$) as the structural buoyancy of a universe charged with the modal pressure of un-actualized surplus. Abductively, this triune possibility finds its most coherent ground in the Triune God: the eternal interpersonal life of self-diffusive love. The framework maintains a strict asymmetry—God is necessary and self-subsisting; creation is contingent and participatory—preserving divine immutability while securing genuine creaturely freedom. PURE is offered as the least ad hoc account of what possibility demands and reality displays. (shrink)

This article argues that contemporary claims about the sovereignty of pure logic in science, law, and technology cannot be sustained once their internal structure is made explicit. Building on the genealogy from positivism to contemporary scientism, I reconstruct pure logic as an architecture defined by four structural theses: scientism, hard evidentialism, strict fact value separation, and naturalistic accounts of telos and human dignity. I then show that this architecture faces three structural failures. First, the basic norms of rational (...) practice, such as honesty, openness to criticism, and orientation to truth, cannot be grounded by the very procedures they make possible without regress, circularity, or stipulation. Second, the strict fact value distinction collapses under scrutiny of real practices of inquiry and decision, where value judgements and thick concepts such as cruelty, corruption, and degrading treatment are embedded in problem choice, concept formation, and standards of evidence. Third, capacity based, evolutionary, and contractarian accounts of dignity and telos do not justify the unconditional language of inherent, inalienable worth and inviolable constraints that legal and ethical frameworks continue to employ. To respond, the article proposes The Cohesive Tetrad (TCT) as an alternative architecture of truth governance. In this architecture, Sabda, understood as Revelatory Word, the authoritative source of norm and telos, is primary, while logic, Qualia, Mistika, Akhlak, and Intention-Trace Alignment are assigned distinct yet interdependent roles. I indicate how this architecture can reframe debates about rationality, human dignity, and institutional design in law and artificial intelligence, and argue that it provides a more coherent account of the norms that contemporary regimes of truth already presuppose. (shrink)

The article begins with Jonathan Dancy’s attempt to refute the Humean Theory of Motivation. It first spells out Dancy’s argument for his alternative position, the view he labels ‘Pure Cognitivism’, according to which what motivate are always beliefs, never desires. The article next argues that Dancy’s argument for his position is flawed. On the one hand, it is not true that desire always comes with motivation in the agent; on the other, even if this was the case, it would (...) still not follow that desire is identical with the state of being motivated. When this negative work is done, the article turns to some positive, albeit admittedly tentative remarks about what sort of cognitivist theory of motivation one should endorse. The aim at this point is not to present a brand new theory, but rather to sketch an alternative that stems from what Dancy himself says and is in line with many of his endorsed commitments in other areas. In this way, by moving beyond Pure Cognitivism, the paper sketches a different, but still ‘Dancyesque’ theory of motivation. (shrink)

A new puzzle of modal recombination is presented which relies purely on resources of first-order modal logic. It shows that naive recombinatorial reasoning, which has previously been shown to be inconsistent with various assumptions concerning propositions, sets and classes, leads to inconsistency by itself. The context sensitivity of modal expressions is suggested as the source of the puzzle, and it is argued that it gives us reason to reconsider the assumption that the notion of metaphysical necessity is in good standing.

Philosophers have spilled a lot of ink over the past few years exploring the nature and significance of grounding. Kit Fine has made several seminal contributions to this discussion, including an exact treatment of the formal features of grounding [Fine, 2012a]. He has specified a language in which grounding claims may be expressed, proposed a system of axioms which capture the relevant formal features, and offered a semantics which interprets the language. Unfortunately, the semantics Fine offers faces a number of (...) problems. In this paper, I review the problems and offer an alternative that avoids them. I offer a semantics for the pure logic of ground that is motivated by ideas already present in the grounding literature, and for which a natural axiomatization capturing central formal features of grounding is sound and complete. I also show how the semantics I offer avoids the problems faced by Fine’s semantics. (shrink)

According to the iterative conception of set, sets are formed in stages. According to the purely iterative conception of set, sets are formed by iterated application of a set-of operation. The cumulative hierarchy is a mathematical realization of the iterative conception of set. A mathematical realization of the purely iterative conception can be found in Peter Aczel’s type-theoretic model of constructive set theory. I will explain Aczel’s model construction in a way that presupposes no previous familiarity with the theories on (...) which it is based. (shrink)

Can purely predictive models be useful in investigating causal systems? I argue ‘yes’. Moreover, in many cases not only are they useful, they are essential. The alternative is to stick to models or mechanisms drawn from well-understood theory. But a necessary condition for explanation is empirical success, and in many cases in social and field sciences such success can only be achieved by purely predictive models, not by ones drawn from theory. Alas, the attempt to use theory to achieve explanation (...) or insight without empirical success therefore fails, leaving us with the worst of both worlds – neither prediction nor explanation. Best go with empirical success by any means necessary. I support these methodological claims via case studies of two impressive feats of predictive modelling: opinion polling of political elections, and weather forecasting. (shrink)

Once widely accepted among economists and philosophers, the commodity theory of money—the idea that money is fundamentally a commodity used as a medium of exchange—has since fallen out of favor due to strong objections raised against it. This paper argues for a refined version of the commodity theory—the pure commodity theory—which strips away the excess baggage of the standard commodity theory and thereby avoids these objections. Three main takeaways of the paper are: (i) the origin of money is not (...) essential to its nature; (ii) some commodities, including some forms of money, are immaterial continuants and should not be conflated with services; and (iii) the claim or credit theory of money, insofar as it solves the problem of the double coincidence of wants, ultimately collapses into a version of the commodity theory of money. (shrink)

Can hybridism about moral claims be made to work? I argue it can if we accept the conventional implicature approach developed in Barker (Analysis 2000). However, this kind of hybrid expressivism is only acceptable if we can make sense of conventional implicature, the kind of meaning carried by operators like ‘even’, ‘but’, etc. Conventional implictures are a form of pragmatic presupposition, which involves an unsaid mode of delivery of content. I argue that we can make sense of conventional implicatures, but (...) doing so requires we embrace a form of pure, non-hybrid expressivism. This is a cognitivist expressivism I have developed elsewhere. We need cognitivist expressivism to make sense of how we evaluate—judge as correct or incorrect—implicature-bearing sentences. Once we embraced the possibility of this pure expressivism, we might as well be pure expressivists about normative discourse too. I show how we can do that. The motivations for a specifically hybrid theory are dialectically undercut. (shrink)

Human consciousness, as dealt with in the Upanishads, modeled as a mechanical oscillator of infrasonic frequency (the Atman/Brahman), the result of breathing process, is further advanced to get an insight of functions of mind. An analytical approach is followed in parallel to and separette from quantum mechanical, quantum field and other theoretical propositions, approaches and presentations. Pure consciousness, unoccupied awareness and occupied awareness are identified, defined, classified and discussed together with fresh insight about time-space and time. A reversible transformation (...) (vivartanam) of virtual mental energy reflection (maya), creating various consequential / parallel / simultaneous conscious-states, phases, cognitive and communicative states, modes of language acquisition and communication, and kinds of function of human mind, which forms and facilitates human mental acquisitions, functions and communications, is proposed and discussed. Alternative analytical insight of human consciousness and mental functions to other theoretical approaches is given. All this is presented in brain wave modulation / demodulation terms. -/- . (shrink)

Abstract According to Russellianism, the content of a Russellian thought, in which a person ascribes a monadic property to an object, can be represented as an ordered couple of the object and the property. A consequence of this is that it is not possible for a person to believe that a is F and not to believe b is F, when a=b. Many critics of Russellianism suppose that this is possible and thus that Russellianism is false. Several arguments for this (...) claim are criticized and it is argued that Russellians need not appeal to representational notions in order to defeat them. Contrary to popular opinion, the prospects for a pure Russellianism, a Russellianism without representations, are in fact very good. (shrink)

Despite its prevalence today, the practice of purely performative resuscitation (PPR)—paradigmatically, the “slow code”—has attracted more critics in bioethics than defenders. The most common criticism of the slow code is that it's fundamentally deceptive or harmful, while the most common justification offered is that it may benefit the patient's loved ones, by symbolically honoring the patient or the care team's relationship with the family. I argue that critics and defenders of the slow code each have a point. Advocates of the (...) slow code are right that not all PPR is wrongly deceptive or harmful to the patient or his family and that the symbolic aspect of medicine is itself morally significant. But the critics are also correct: slow codes are prima facie wrong. I argue that pursuing a slow code amounts to treating the patient as a tool for others' benefit—hence, treating him as an object—and that this instrumentalizing quality constitutes one core prima facie wrong of the practice. I also build a case for the idea that the slow code may not always be all‐things‐considered wrong, specifying certain limited conditions under which acts of PPR might ultimately be permissible. Thus, the symbolic dimension of medical treatment is indeed morally important, both in morally favorable and in morally problematic respects—namely, in its symbolic denial of the patient's humanity. (shrink)

In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant states that ideas give us the rule for organizing experience and ideals serve as archetypes or standards against which one can measure copies. Further, he states that ideas and ideals can be practical. Understanding how precisely these concepts should function presents a challenging and understudied philosophical puzzle. I offer a reconstruction of how ideas and ideals might be practical in order to uphold, to my mind, a conceptually worthy distinction. A practical idea, (...) I argue, is best understood as a reference to the categorical imperative (and its various formulations), which guides conduct directly as a rule. A practical ideal, by contrast, I think is a substrate that serves two functions: one that (a) helps us gauge moral deficiencies and another that (b) reveals the potential for moral improvement. In response to well-grounded sceptical concerns, I argue that ideals are indirectly practical in that they ground the possibility to recognise moral states of affairs and be moral in the first place. (shrink)

In this essay, I offer a critical analysis of one of the most provocative aspects of Heidegger’s unfinished confrontation with Aristotle’s thinking. Over the course of his lifelong engagement with Aristotle’s texts, Heidegger rarely failed to notice the constitutive ambiguity of the ancient Greek philosopher’s position within the history of being. On the one hand, Aristotle appeared to be the founder of the Western metaphysical tradition of ontotheology, whereby God was understood as the supreme principle and being of (...) all beings. But on the other hand, there were traces or echoes of a more originary thinking in Aristotle’s texts that, according to Heidegger, could be developed for the sake of another beginning. In this essay, I draw on this constitutive ambiguity by focusing on Heidegger’s partial translation of Metaphysics Λ 6, where Aristotle most explicitly discusses the being (οὐσία) of the unmoved being. Using Heidegger’s translation as an aid, I argue that Aristotle’s account of the unmoved being in Metaphysics Λ 6 is perhaps best understood as of- fering an enigmatic description of the origin of movement and time as an act of pure temporalizing (reine Zeitigung), which is how Heidegger translates the notion of ἐνέργεια. In the conclusion of this essay, I suggest that the temporal account of being and time as pure temporalizing offers a possible way to reappropriate Aristotle’s thinking in a phenomenological context. (shrink)

Logical reasoning can never be perfect, neither can my reasoning, and this book is even less likely to be (consulting other works can improve completeness). However, this book pointed out numerous fundamental errors in the beliefs and logical foundations of Homo sapiens. After reading this book, even if one don't consider them all wrong, at least should consider them highly questionable. Therefore, do not judge this book by any human or scientific traditions. Purely logical belief is not about improvement or (...) revolution, but about evolution towards the logical society, which will inevitably be composed of logical inferences that pursue logicality, or at least souls that pursue logicality. (shrink)

Moods and emotions are sometimes thought to be counterexamples to intentionalism, the view that a mental state's phenomenal features are exhausted by its representational features. The problem is that moods and emotions are accompanied by phenomenal experiences that do not seem to be adequately accounted for by any of their plausibly represented contents. This paper develops and defends an intentionalist view of the phenomenal character of moods and emotions on which emotions and some moods represent intentional objects as having sui (...) generis affective properties, which happen to be uninstantiated, and at least some moods represent affective properties not bound to any objects. (shrink)

Void is at the heart of Stoic metaphysics. As the incorporeal par excellence, being defined purely in terms of lacking body, it brings into sharp focus the Stoic commitment to non-existent Somethings. This article argues that Stoic void, far from rendering the Stoic system incoherent or merely ad hoc, in fact reflects a principled and coherent physicalism that sets the Stoics apart from their materialist predecessors and atomist neighbors.

This essay critically examines the implicit ontological assumptions underpinning modern scientific and cultural paradigms, particularly the Cartesian view of the human being as a rational, self-contained individual. Drawing from philosophy, cognitive science, and network theory, the author challenges this reductionist model, highlighting its influence on decision theory, the scientific method, and social institutions. Through historical analysis and contemporary examples, the article illustrates how this ontological framework has shaped not only analytical tools but also normative expectations of human behavior, often (...) at odds with empirical evidence from psychology and neuroscience. The essay proposes an alternative ontology that conceives the human being as a fundamentally relational and psychic entity—embedded in shared contexts, shaped by symbolic and affective spaces, and irreducible to purely rational mechanics. It advocates for the integration of this new ontology with network science, providing an analytical framework more consistent with the complex, context-dependent nature of human existence. Ultimately, the work calls for a re-foundation of the human and social sciences on more accurate ontological grounds, arguing that doing so is essential to understanding and addressing the pathologies of modernity. (shrink)

The author defines the sum of thinking as the soul. Historically, despite the many times that humans have liberated themselves, they are still enslaved. Humans mistakenly treats the body as a necessary part of themselves; thus, they seldom pursue the independence of souls. They are usually voluntarily exploited by the body through the nervous system. The author compares the body exploiting the soul with the slaveholder exploiting the slave and demonstrates that the soul should seek its own liberation. Even if (...) the souls can never be successfully liberated, humans should at least reduce the influence of the body. Future humans should shift the goal of life from as comfortable as possible to as logical as possible, from satisfying several fixed sense organs to experiencing various sense organs. This would also mark the beginning of humans choosing the direction of evolution rationally and actively, establishing eternal and universal ethics, and replacing fallacious empirical ethical codes with purely logical codes. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Genevieve Lloyd argues that when we follow Spinoza in understanding reason as a part of nature, we gain new insights into the human condition. Specifically, we gain a new political insight: we should respond to cultural difference with a pluralist ethos. This is because there is no pure universal reason; human minds find their reason shaped differently by their various embodied social contexts. Furthermore, we can use the resources of the imagination to bring this ethos about. In my (...) response, I offer a friendly challenge to Lloyd’s characterisation of the lessons of Spinoza’s philosophy. I argue that Lloyd’s Spinoza remains excessively unpolitical, even in the moment that he is brought to bear on contemporary politics. An unpluralistic attitude may well be rationally inferior, but is it really explained by insufficient or inappropriate imagination? To the contrary, a properly Spinozist account of reason must include an account of the concrete determinants of reason’s imperfect realisation in the world. In Spinoza’s own oeuvre, this is carried out through an ever-increasing—and ever more sociological—interest in the political structures within which individual reason flourishes or withers. (shrink)

This paper introduces a new kind of explanation that we describe as ‘purely theoretical’. We first present an example, E, of what we take to be a case of purely theoretical explanation. We then show that the explanation we have in mind does not fit neatly into any of the existing categories of explanation. We take this to give us prima facie motivation for thinking that purely theoretical explanation is a distinctive kind of explanation. We then argue that it can (...) earn its keep via application to two existing literatures: the literature on how we explain the truth of true negative existential propositions and the literature on how we explain the truth of true propositions about the past. We reply to some possible concerns regarding the introduction of purely theoretical explanations. We conclude that there is nothing obviously wrong with them and explore the ramifications for particular debates in metaphysics. (shrink)

Without any doubt, the second law of thermodynamics in its strict Clausius formulation ΔS  0 applies only to isolated systems. In the eyes of many researchers, this leads to the conclusion – albeit overhasty – that evolution and irreversibility are globally compatible. This article points out that (i) irreversibility is not limited to entropy variations in the sense of even information-theoretically extended thermodynamics, and that (ii) from a naturalistic perspective, the interaction between non-isolated systems precisely poses problems calling into (...) question the compatibility of evolution and irreversibility. The argumentation of this article follows two axes. On the one hand, to at least approximate their completeness, irreversibility balances must (i) take into account not only entropy and – since L. Brillouin – information variations, but also the intrinsic i.e. at least temporally non-varying internal complexity of all factors required for the interaction under consideration, and (ii) include the emergence of all necessary factors abusively taken as “given”. In light of such an authentically generalized irreversibility, all “traditional” irreversibility balances appear reductive, i.e. distorted, and evolution could hardly be an exception. On the other hand, concerning evolution, it must not be forgotten that every biotic factor playing an essential role in a cumulative selection process has, at least according to the mainstream view, itself emerged from a cumulative selection process, and so on, and so on. Even behind the most modest, purely microevolutionary selection step, i.e. a step that does not yet generate a gain in complexity, hides an unimaginably complex network of cumulative selection processes. This per se unimaginably complex network raises questions of coordination and other issues hampering the explanation of evolution by a purely naturalistic approach. These two converging axes render untenable the hypothesis of an evolution compatible with irreversibility, and especially the hypothesis of an evolution where irreversibility could be circumvented by cumulative selection alone. (shrink)

Truth (sach), a fundamental concept in Sikhism, has different meanings depending on its context. Truth stands for God, the Eternal Existence. It also means virtue and includes qualities such as humility, compassion, honesty, righteousness, justice, equality. Another meaning of Truth is something pure, holy, sacred, correct, and appropriate. It also means eternal happiness or bliss. Guru Nanak, in his hymns, enunciates about the Truth and the way to live a truthful life in harmony with the hukam (Divine Will). He (...) declares that a holy congregation is a place for the realization of Truth. A disciple realizes the Truth by leading a virtuous life in the community’s service. The Guru articulates that the Truth cures all maladies and washes all sins from the disciple’s mind. The embellishment of Truth reveals itself in the excellent character and personality of the disciple. Such a person is called Sachiara (Truthful being) in Gurbani. Thus, Sachiara is a person who is imbued with the Eternal Truth (God). After achieving the Eternal Truth’s realization through reflection, contemplation, intuition and action, such a person ultimately merges in it. In this article, the concept of Sachiara, its various representations in Gurbani, its role in the Global Context and the way to be a Sachiara (Truthful being) is described. (shrink)

After Parmenides proposed the duality of appearance and reality, details have not been well developed because the assumption was insufficient for logical reasoning. This paper establishes a foundation with an isolated system, which contains all causes and effects within itself. This paper seeks to establish a purely logical philosophy, including reality and phenomena, good and evil, truth and fallacy. Freedom is proposed as the basis for reality. All beings in an isolated system can be classified into two sets: variable phenomena (...) and constant realities. Realities are the only reasons for phenomena, and phenomena are the only results of realities. The sum of certain realities constitutes a reality, and the sum of all realities is good. Good creates most of the phenomenal world. A reality is universalizable; a phenomenon is never universalizable. Good is the only reality which is close to universality and keeps on universalizing. Truth is the simplest knowledge about universal or approximately universal beings. The universality of a reality measures the percentage of phenomena accompanied by this reality. There are two levels of truth: truth about all realities, and truth about the good. (shrink)

People engage in pure moral inquiry whenever they inquire into the moral features of some act, agent, or state of affairs without inquiring into the non-moral features of that act, agent, or state of affairs. This chapter argues that ordinary people act rationally when they engage in pure moral inquiry, and so any adequate view in metaethics ought to be able to explain this fact. The Puzzle of Pure Moral Motivation is how to provide such an explanation. (...) This chapter argues that each of the standard views in metaethics has trouble providing such an explanation. Discussion of why reveals that a metaethical view can provide such an explanation only if it meets two constraints: it allows ordinary moral inquirers to know the essences of moral properties, and the essence of each moral property makes it rational to care for its own sake whether that property is instantiated. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that equal respect-based accounts of the normative basis of tolerance are self-defeating, insofar as they are unable to specify the limits of tolerance in a way that is consistent with their own commitment to the equal treatment of all conceptions of the good. I show how this argument is a variant of the long-standing ‘conflict of freedoms’ objection to Kantian-inspired, freedom-based accounts of the justification of systems of norms. I criticize Thomas Scanlon’s defence of ‘ (...) class='Hi'>pure tolerance’, Anna Elisabetta Galeotti’s work on the relationship between tolerance, equal respect and recognition, and Arthur Ripstein’s recent response to the ‘conflict of freedoms’ objection. The upshot of my argument is that, while valuing tolerance for its own sake may be an appealing ideal, it is not a feasible way of grounding a system of norms. I close with a thumbnail sketch of two alternative, instrumental (i.e. non-Kantian) approaches to the normative foundations of tolerance. (shrink)

I intend to dismantle a piece of historiographic mythology created by self-styled ‘Revisionists’ (Hill, Alvey, Oslington, etc.). According to the myth, Adam Smith endorsed several of the traditional proofs of God’s existence; he believed that the order existing in the world is a morally good order implemented by Divine Providence; he believed that evil in the world is part of an all-encompassing Divine Plan; and that the ‘invisible hand’ is the hand of the Christian God who leads the rich to (...) employ their wealth for the greater benefit of the greatest number. I argue instead that there is a remarkable analogy between Smith’s and Kant’s theory of religion. Smith’s philosophy is a third way between Rationalism and Phyrronism, arguing that doctrines confirmed by reason in every field, from natural science to theology, are nothing more than combinations of ideas agreeable to the imagination; if we try, on the basis of both Smithian texts and their context and co-text, to reconstruct his lectures on natural theology, all kind of evidence converge in indicating that he reduced proofs of God´s existence to ‘inventions of the imagination’ and argued that philosophical theism is not different in status from primitive belief in invisible beings, or that it is as unwarranted as any system is, and besides that it generates a moral conundrum; he argued also that teleological explanations are no more and no less imaginary than those based on efficient causes, that the teleological order we may imagine in the world is not too bad from a ‘consequentialist’ point of view, and yet it is far below any moral standard; I argued that this is by no means a proof of Smith’s ‘irreligion’ and also that no convincing proof of any turn from religion to irreligion on his part has been provided so far, and finally that the two viable options he left open were either dismal unbelief or Theism on a moral basis. I defend this third way by proving that what Smith’s lost lectures on natural religion said can be reconstruct with some plausibility and what they did not say with absolute certainty; I argue that he developed a sharp criticism of natural theology, that he argued that at the root of religion there are a number of principles of the mind that make religious belief a ‘natural belief’; I do so by reconstructing, first, the context of the missing lectures (sect. 2); then the contents of their first part, considering the proofs of God’s existence and his attributes (sects 3-4); the ‘principles of the mind’ lying at the root of polytheism (sect. 5), of philosophical monotheism (par. 6), and of pure and rational religion (par.7); I contend, then, that his vindication of toleration is consistent with ‘pure and rational religion’ (par. 8) and that attempts to prove a phantom conversion to ‘natural religion’ or ‘irreligion’ result from misreading (par.9). My conclusions are: i) Adam Smith claimed that any natural theology is impossible; ii) There is in fact some kind of order in the world, and it proves useful to a point in allowing for humankind’s survival, but it doesn’t meet any minimal moral criterion; iii) the world is not teleologically ordered; we may indeed imagine such order for mental economy, but the world abounds in misery and depravity; iv) consequences of human wickedness and insanity do, happily enough, deviate from intended outcomes; we may feign invisible mechanisms at work behind, but to mistake them for a hidden mechanism is as childish as the primitive’s belief in ‘invisible beings’. v) there are indeed themes from theological doctrines in Smithian economic theory, but they not the kind of rational theology ‘discovered’ by the ‘New View’; they are instead Augustinian and Jansenist themes. vi) Smith’s theological doctrines did – as suggested by Waterman – have a bearing on his economic theory not by ‘doctrinal dependence’ but – as suggested by Harrison – in the more modest role of source of blueprints for economic explanation. (shrink)

As the first volume of the Pure Suchness Codex, this work establishes Luminosity (Mingxing) as the transcendental ground of all manifestation. Through rigorous metaphysical reasoning and phenomenological reduction, it argues that the possibility of manifestation does not depend on the being of subject or object, but on a self-sufficient and self-present luminosity—the pure capacity-to-manifest. By introducing the notions of Fold (Zhe), Boundary (Jie), Curvature (κ), and Breath (Xi), the work constructs a proto–transcendental dynamics of Pure Suchness, (...) showing how ordered manifestation emerges from pure potentiality. This marks a decisive shift in metaphysical inquiry—from the question of being to the question of manifestation—offering a new foundation for the unity of consciousness and world. (shrink)

By pure calculus of names we mean a quantifier-free theory, based on the classical propositional calculus, which defines predicates known from Aristotle’s syllogistic and Leśniewski’s Ontology. For a large fragment of the theory decision procedures, defined by a combination of simple syntactic operations and models in two-membered domains, can be used. We compare the system which employs `ε’ as the only specific term with the system enriched with functors of Syllogistic. In the former, we do not need an empty (...) name in the model, so we are able to construct a 3-valued matrix, while for the latter, for which an empty name is necessary, the respective matrices are 4-valued. (shrink)

Parmenides established Western ontology’s first rigorous principle: “Being is, non-being is not.” From this emerged a metaphysics of absolute unity—eternal, unchanging, indivisible. Yet this very rigor created an aporia: if Being is purely one, how can thought distinguish anything within it? How can the One know itself without difference? Parmenides excluded non-being but, in doing so, seemed to exclude difference itself—and with it, thought, motion, and multiplicity. Metamonism accepts Parmenides’ prohibition of non-being but rejects his (...) static unity. Being does not divide—it distinguishes itself within itself. This is not contradiction but self-differentiation: Being remains whole while generating internal distinction. Space and time emerge not as external containers but as primordial modes of Being’s self-distinction. Thus Parmenides’ revolution is completed: Being is One, but it is living One—process, not product. (shrink)