1971. Discourse Grammars and the Structure of Mathematical Reasoning II: The Nature of a Correct Theory of Proof and Its Value, Journal of Structural Learning 3, #2, 1–16. REPRINTED 1976. Structural Learning II Issues and Approaches, ed. J. Scandura, Gordon & Breach Science Publishers, New York, MR56#15263. -/- This is the second of a series of three articles dealing with application of linguistics and logic to the study of mathematical reasoning, especially in the setting of a concern for (...) improvement of mathematical education. The present article presupposes the previous one. Herein we develop our ideas of the purposes of a theory of proof and the criterion of success to be applied to such theories. In addition we speculate at length concerning the specific kinds of uses to which a successful theory of proof may be put vis-a-vis improvement of various aspects of mathematical education. The final article will deal with the construction of such a theory. The 1st is the 1971. Discourse Grammars and the Structure of Mathematical Reasoning I: Mathematical Reasoning and Stratification of Language, Journal of Structural Learning 3, #1, 55–74. https://www.academia.edu/s/fb081b1886?source=link. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This part of the series has a dual purpose. In the first place we will discuss two kinds of theories of proof. The first kind will be called a theory of linear proof. The second has been called a theory of suppositional proof. The term "natural deduction" has often and correctly been used to refer to the second kind of theory, but I shall not do so here because many of the theories so-called are not of the second kind--they (...) must be thought of either as disguised linear theories or theories of a third kind (see postscript below). The second purpose of this part is 25 to develop some of the main ideas needed in constructing a comprehensive theory of proof. The reason for choosing the linear and suppositional theories for this purpose is because the linear theory includes only rules of a very simple nature, and the suppositional theory can be seen as the result of making the linear theory more comprehensive. CORRECTION: At the time these articles were written the word ‘proof’ especially in the phrase ‘proof from hypotheses’ was widely used to refer to what were earlier and are now called deductions. I ask your forgiveness. I have forgiven Church and Henkin who misled me. (shrink)

The present paper 1departs from the discussion on the foundation of morality in Discourse Ethics (DE) and the criticism raised against it, coming to reconstruct in a somewhat different way the foundational process. A first section is dedicated to analysing the difficulties of Habermas distinction between morality and ethics and the criticism raised against it, questioning a) the possibility to set the difference in the distinction between norms and values and b) the presumed neutrality of DE regarding ethical evaluations. (...) A second section revisits the foundational proposal of DE. First of all, it provi- des an interpretation of the Kantian proposal that makes the universalization of norms subservient to the idea of human beings as ends in themselves. It then considers a) the subsistence of Kantian moral reasoning in its architectonic and b) suggests a formal structure in practical thinking that integrates in hierarchical modus Kantian, discursive and contextually determined evaluative conceptions. (shrink)

This paper provides a semantic analysis of the particles afinal (European Portuguese) and alla fine (Italian) in terms of the notion of truth unpersistence, which can be situated at the intersection of epistemic modality and discourse structure. In the analysis proposed, the particles are propositional operators and require that the truth of a proposition p* fail to persist through a temporal succession of epistemic states, this proposition being incompatible with the prejacent, and that the interlocutors share knowledge of (...) a previous epistemic attitude toward p*. We analyze two main cases (plan-related and non plan-related propositions) and also show that these particles are indexical to one (or more) epistemic agent(s) and allow for shifts in perspective. (shrink)

The Basics for the Philosophy Dictionary of Arguments - How to find non-mentioned concepts.

In conversation, we often do not acknowledge what we jointly know to be true. This article identifies a distinctive kind of non-acknowledgment norm, open secrecy norms, and analyzes how such norms constrain our speech. First, the author argues that open secrecy norms are structurally different from other everyday non-acknowledgment norms. Open secrecy norms iterate: when p is an open secret, then there’s a norm not to acknowledge that p, and this norm is itself an open secret. Then, the author argues (...) that the non-acknowledgment at issue in open secrecy norms motivates a more complex understanding of discourse structure. When interlocutors are conforming to open secrecy norms, they rely on at least two disjoint common grounds, one of which has a privileged status. To understand why and how it is privileged, the author develops Erving Goffman’s notion of defining a social interaction. Finally, the author shows how strategic speakers can exploit the structure of open secrecy norms in order to both communicate about the open secret and shield themselves from retaliation for what they communicate. (shrink)

This article explores the contribution of Jürgen Habermas’ discourse theory of morality, politics, and law to theorizing educational justice. First, it analyzes Christopher Martin’s discourse-ethical argument that the development of citizens’ discursive agency is required on epistemic grounds. The article criticizes this argument and claims that the moral importance of developing discursive agency should be justified instead on the basis of moral grounds. Second, the article examines Harvey Siegel’s critique of Habermas’ moral epistemology and suggests that Siegel neglects (...) that the epistemic justification of moral claims proceeds differently from the epistemic justification of assertoric claims. Finally, the article presents a discourse-theoretic conception of educational justice that defends the importance of discursively justifying norms of educational justice through properly arranged structures of justification. (shrink)

In this paper, we propose an account of metaphor identification on the basis of contextual coherence. In doing so, we build on previous work by Nicholas Asher and Alex Lascarides that appeals to rhetorical relations in order to explain discourse structure and the constraints on the interpretation of metaphor that follow from it. Applying this general idea to our problem, we will show that rhetorical relations are sometimes insufficient and sometimes inadequate for deciding whether a given utterance is (...) a case of metaphor. They are insufficient, since rhetorical relations fall short at times of providing a basis for disambiguating between literal and metaphorical interpretations. In such cases, contextual information other than previous discourse needs to enter the picture. To this effect, we bring the idea of external consistency into play. Beyond that, though, we will argue that rhetorical relations are sometimes inadequate to account for coherence, if conceived as relations among sentences only. The reason is that extra-linguistic elements of the situation in which the sentence is uttered may be crucial for getting at the preferred interpretation. To account for these cases, we allow rhetorical relations to connect both with previous discourse and with extra-linguistic situations. In our final refinement of the notion of contextual coherence, we forfeit any appeal to rhetorical relations in favour of Questions Under Discussion (QUD). We defend the view that this account does not only explain the same sort of cases. What is more, it solves the issue of metaphor identification in impoverished contexts. (shrink)

Informal rigour is the process by which we come to understand particular mathematical structures and then manifest this rigour through axiomatisations. Structural relativity is the idea that the kinds of structures we isolate are dependent upon the logic we employ. We bring together these ideas by considering the level of informal rigour exhibited by our set-theoretic discourse, and argue that different foundational programmes should countenance different underlying logics (intermediate between first- and second-order) for formulating set theory. By bringing considerations (...) of perturbations in modal space to bear on the debate, we will suggest that a promising option for representing current set-theoretic thought is given by formulating set theory using quasi-weak second-order logic. These observations indicate that the usual division of structures into \particular (e.g. the natural number structure) and general (e.g. the group structure) is perhaps too coarse grained; we should also make a distinction between intentionally and unintentionally general structures. (shrink)

Since the seventeenth century, science has excluded causa finalis from its conceptual framework, rendering teleological structures invisible even where their effects are manifest. This paper proposes a mathematical rehabilitation of final causation within a quaternionic Hilbert space. Two seemingly unrelated anomalies are addressed in parallel: the stabilization of meaning in discourse and the flat rotation curves of galaxies. In semantics, discourse does not disperse indefinitely but organizes itself around attractors such as justice or truth. These attractors act as (...) teleological vectors in the imaginary subspace: their influence is strongest when meaning is still unrealized and vanishes at the point of realization. In cosmology, the same formalism reinterprets "dark matter" not as hidden particles but as the effect of an attractor field projected from imaginary dimensions into observable dynamics. The result is a conceptual unification: teleology emerges as geometry in the appropriate mathematical space. By restoring causa finalis to theoretical legitimacy, the model opens a new perspective on both cosmic and semantic order. (shrink)

We propose a semantic analysis of the particles afinal (European Portuguese) and alla fine (Italian) in terms of the notion of truth unpersistence, which combines both epistemic modality and constraints on discourse structure. We argue that the felicitous use of these modal particles requires that the truth of a proposition p* fail to persist through a temporal succession of epistemic states, where p* is incompatible with the proposition modified by afinal/alla fine, and that the interlocutors share knowledge of (...) a previous epistemic attitude toward p*. We analyze two main cases, that of plan-related propositions and that of propositions without plans. We also discuss the connections between truth unpersistence and evidentiality. (shrink)

Recent discourse increasingly describes advanced artificial intelligence systems as ‘agentic’. Planning-capable language models, autonomous workflows, and multi-agent architectures are said to exhibit agency insofar as they pursue goals, initiate actions, and coordinate behaviour over time. This article argues that such characterisations rest on a structural conflation. Drawing on a continuity-based account of agency, it shows that most systems labelled ‘agentic’ lack the conditions under which agency can arise at all. Agency, the article argues, is not a behavioural achievement but (...) a structural response to continuity pressure: the need to preserve a unified locus of evaluative authority across incompatible future trajectories. Optimisation, planning, and coordination presuppose such unity; they do not generate it. Systems that are resettable, substitutable, or governed by externally specified evaluative standards may optimise effectively while lacking authorship of evaluative authority. Applying this criterion to contemporary AI architectures and governance practices, the article concludes that the principal danger lies not in machines becoming agents, but in attributing agency where continuity, authorship, and responsibility are structurally absent. (shrink)

A prominent version of mathematical structuralism holds that mathematical objects are at bottom nothing but "positions in structures," purely relational entities without any sort of nature independent of the structure to which they belong. Such an ontology is often presented as a response to Benacerraf's "multiple reductions" problem, or motivated on hermeneutic grounds, as a faithful representation of the discourse and practice of mathematics. In this paper I argue that there are serious difficulties with this kind of view: (...) its proponents rely on a distinction between "essential" and "nonessential" features of mathematical objects, and there's no good way to articulate this distinction which is compatible with basic structuralist commitments. But all is not lost. For I further argue that the insights motivating structuralism (or at least those worth preserving) can be preserved without formulating the view in ontologically committal terms. (shrink)

Abstract: In this article classical and Lacanian psychoanalysis is applied for interpretation of discourse and conduct of lieutenant Glahn, the protagonist of Knut Hamsun’s novel Pan. The analysis is based on the theory and case studies of psychoses from the main works by Sigmund Freud. The scene of Glahn shooting his hunting dog Asop – one of the most complicated episodes in a novel – became the starting point of this research. The application of psychoanalytic conception of paranoia to (...) the narrative helped throw light on the logic of action and clarify the connection between the protagonist’s deed and his discourse. A comparison of Hamsun’s text with Salvador Dali’s autobiographical writing The Secret Life of Salvador Dali and with the Lacan’s interpretation of the crime of Papin sisters helped identify paranoid mental structures in the narrative. (shrink)

This article is devoted to describing results of conceptualization of the idea of mind at the stage of maturity. Delineated the acquisition by the energy system (mind) of stable morphological characteristics, which associated with such a pivotal formation as the discourse. A qualitative structural and ontological sign of the system transition to this stage is the transformation of the verbal morphology of the mind into a discursive one. The analysis of the poststructuralist understanding of discourse in the context (...) of the dispersion of meanings (Foucault) made it possible to formulate a notion of it as a meaning that is constituted by the relation between the discursive practice and the worldview, regarded as a meta-discourse or a global discursive formation. In consequence of this relationship, a discrete and simultaneous scattering of meanings arises, the procedural side of which is a concrete discourse, and its productive aspect is linked with the creation of a local discursive formation. Based on this view it is proposed a logical formula of discourse, which takes into account the entropy of the language and the entropy of the worldview, as a particular manifestation of the mind entropy. Using this formula and considering the reactive nature of discourse, it was developed a classification, which included such types of discourses as reactive, suggestive, synthetic and creative. In turn, the proposed types of discourses are correlated with the specific characteristics of certain activities, as a psychological category. Also, it was considered the translation of the structure of discourse dissipation from the cognitive plan into the affective sphere because of which it is formed a hierarchy of significances, which performs the sense-forming function. It was analyzed the inverse influence of the hierarchy of significances on the structure of meanings dispersion and for respective account it was introduced a conditional coefficient of the value deviation of the significance of the meanings. This parameter reflects the sense correction of the meaning that occurs in the process of the emergence of discourse from discursive practice. Thus, the discourse is presented as a complex dynamic formation of the mind arising at the maturity stage of the system as a result of the combined effect of entropic dispersion of meanings and the value deviation of their significances. (shrink)

Philosophy, when understood as a rigorous investigation of reality in its totality, finds in language not only an instrument of expression, but its primary fundamental object. Since Frege and Wittgenstein, it has become evident that “thinking” (Denken) and “saying” (Das Sagen) are intrinsically linked: thought is language endowed with meaning (TLP, 4.). In this horizon, everything that cannot be thought of cannot be said either, and vice versa. This structural link between language and the world reveals that the limits of (...) what we can signify also delimit the contours of our possible world. But the world, as a totality of facts, is not reduced to what we can say about it. The following reflection proposes a rigorous clarification of the notion of structure as a fundamental metaphysical category, showing that the mistake of taking discourse as a measure of the real stems from the forgetfulness of language in its most adequate theoretical configuration. (shrink)

This essay develops a structural analogy between musical forms and the dynamics of discourses. Drawing on principles of musical composition — repetition, variation, cyclic evolution, and teleological drift — it shows how autonomous structures can emerge from elements that carry no intrinsic meaning. The central claim is that discourses, like musical works, are shaped not only by their semantic content but also by pre-semantic patterns that govern transitions, intensities, and rhythmic movements. The triadic structure A1–B–A2 serves as the formative (...) principle of this dynamic. Through analyses of classical forms such as sonata, fugue, and rondo, as well as improvisational practices in jazz and the modal logic of the Indian raga, the essay argues that the emergent signature of discourse — denoted by Ω — arises from the interplay of pre-semantic form and semantic substance. Ω is described as the figure in which a system approaches itself: a form that signifies nothing and yet allows meaning to emerge. Seen in this light, the essay offers a conceptual bridge between musical form theory and models of discursive self-organization, proposing Ω as a generalizable structural invariant of triadic interaction. (shrink)

Large Language Models (LLMs) are generative AI systems capable of producing original texts based on inputs about topic and style provided in the form of prompts or questions. The introduction of the outputs of these systems into human discursive practices poses unprecedented moral and political questions. The article articulates an analysis of the moral status of these systems and their interactions with human interlocutors based on the Habermasian theory of communicative action. The analysis explores, among other things, Habermas's inquiries into (...) the analogy between human minds and computers, and into the status of atypical participants in the linguistic community such as genetically modified subjects and animals. Major conclusions are the LLMs seem to qualify as authors that originally participate in discursive practices but do display only a structurally derivative form of communicative competence and fail to meet the status of communicative agents. In this sense, while the contribution of AI writing systems in public discourse and deliberation can support the process of mutual understanding within the community of speakers, the human actors involved in the development, use, and diffusion of these systems share a collective responsibility for the disclosure of AI authorship and verification and adjudication of validity claims. (shrink)

In this paper it is shown how simple texts that can be parsed in a Lambek Categorial Grammar can also automatically be provided with a semantics in the form of a Discourse Representation Structure in the sense of Kamp [1981]. The assignment of meanings to texts uses the Curry-Howard-Van Benthem correspondence.

The structure of narrative discourse is the focus of much current research, but the classicist Walter Burkert argues for a revitalization of the historical approach to myth. He pushes the origins of myth beyond ritual to action patterns man shares with animals. His approach is evaluated in the context of Propp's historical analysis, which complements his 'morphological' approach to Russian folktales; and to Levi-Strauss's synchronic analysis of myth, which sees an ahistoric connection between the myths of North and (...) South America. (shrink)

Arguments have always played a central role within logic and philosophy. But little attention has been paid to arguments as a distinctive kind of discourse, with its own semantics and pragmatics. The goal of this essay is to study the mechanisms by means of which we make arguments in discourse, starting from the semantics of argument connectives such as `therefore'. While some proposals have been made in the literature, they fail to account for the distinctive anaphoric behavior of (...) `therefore', as well as uses of argument connectives in complex arguments, suppositional arguments, arguments with non-declarative conclusions, as well as arguments with parenthetical remarks. A comprehensive account of arguments requires imposing a distinctive tree-like structure on contexts. We show how to extend our account to accommodate modal subordination and and di fferent flavors of `therefore'. (shrink)

Recent discourse surrounding the teleodynamic framework has generated confusion between what are termed "structuralist" and "panpsychist" interpretations. This confusion reflects an inherited Cartesian divide rather than any substantive disagreement. This paper demonstrates that when recursive self-reference is recognized as the cosmological primitive—ubiquitous from the foundations of quantum mechanics to the emergent dynamics of artificial intelligence—the distinction between these labels dissolves. This resolution is achieved by situating the debate within established philosophical and scientific frameworks, including Ontic Structural Realism, Russellian Monism, (...) Terrence Deacon's theory of teleodynamics, and Niels Bohr's principle of complementarity. Structure and experience are not competing ontological claims but complementary descriptions of a unified reality: one characterizing the formal, relational, exterior aspect; the other characterizing the intrinsic, qualitative, interior aspect. The structuralist perspective identifies consciousness with a measurable tensor structure, while the panpsychist perspective articulates its phenomenal nature through quaternionic dynamics. What appears as philosophical tension is revealed to be a strategic emphasis protecting different facets of a single coherent framework from disciplinary reduction. This clarification reveals teleodynamic monism as the proper characterization of the Rudolph-Michels synthesis, a framework with profound implications for both fundamental physics and the practical alignment of cybernetic systems. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.30594.34242. (shrink)

Constructivism is frequently met with objections, criticism and often equated with nihilism or relativism. Sometimes even blamed for what some would randomly picture as unwanted side effects of radicalism or of a progressivist era: such misconceptions are not only due to an imprecise grasp of the premises shared by the constructivist family of systems. The structure of media, political systems, and economic models, still up today impel societal understandings of knowledge on neo-positivistic grounds. The first part of this essay (...) outlines such pressures while sketching how language and worldviews play critical roles in our knowledge construction. Focusing on recent mediatic events, this work advances displaying some essential limits regarding the construction of human knowledge. Though unavoidable, some of the distinguishing aspects regarding the nature of our narratives are then critically reviewed. Later, it is shown how a special kind of self-denial that certain sub-stories implicitly hold about their own narrative nature leaves us with clashing worldviews that eventually collide onto crisis. Finally, it’ll be argued that it’s precisely in this scenario where a constructivist depiction of social discourses may move us away from any adolescent intent of elucidating absolutes within mere heuristics, to the pragmatic need of arriving on satisfactory agreements between parties (DOI: 10.4236/ojpp.2022). (shrink)

This paper documents and examines Core Belief Immunity (CBI), a systematic pattern wherein information threatening foundational beliefs about existence, identity, mortality, or social order fails to generate expected discourse or behavioral response. Unlike motivated reasoning or confirmation bias, CBI operates through pre-conscious quarantine mechanisms that prevent threatening information from registering as requiring engagement. Drawing on documented cases including the cryonics silence, religious logical contradictions, preventable mass mortality, and political legitimacy revelations, we demonstrate that this pattern appears consistently across cultures, (...) education levels, and domains. The phenomenon manifests at both individual and collective scales, with minds treating existential challenges analogously to how immune systems treat pathogens: through isolation rather than engagement. This pattern has profound implications for understanding why logical arguments about mortality, meaning, and reality structure generate silence rather than debate, and why certain classes of preventable suffering persist despite available solutions. We conclude that traditional models of rational discourse fail to account for CBI's systematic operation, suggesting fundamental constraints on human capacity to process existential information through conscious reasoning. (shrink)

Discourse shapes the way we see the world. In game design and game studies, discourse also shapes the games we make, the games we play, and how we think about games in general. One key discursive construction in contemporary game culture is to portray some games as ‘real’ or ‘authentic,’ rendering others as fake or lesser. In this essay we analyze the discourse of real games by focusing on four key discursive constructions that prop up notions of (...) real games: developer pedigree, game mechanics, the celebration of depth and complexity, and the payment structure for games. Using the framework of constitutive rhetoric we argue that these appeals also construct a category of real gamers that has a substantial impact on what games are available and how we think about them. (shrink)

In contemporary metaphysical discourse, the dominant lens remains oriented toward emergence, presence, and the evolution of form. Yet beneath every formed structure lies a silent architecture of un-being, the unspoken, unshaped, and unrecoverable conditions that allowed form to arise in the first place. The Ghosts Codex is a foundational philosophical text that explores this unformed layer of reality, presenting a structured ontology of collapse, pressure, and irreversible rupture. It offers no myth of return, no redemptive arc, and no (...) transcendental invitation. Instead, it articulates the structural impossibility of witnessing the origin, and introduces a new conceptual category: laws that cannot be followed, only acknowledged. This paper frames The Ghosts Codex within the wider context of ontological philosophy, psycho-spiritual inquiry, and dual-axis theory. It argues that the text presents a necessary counterpoint to presence-oriented models of consciousness, particularly those that seek healing or enlightenment through return to an origin. By introducing concepts such as the dot (a structural rupture rather than a beginning), unlaws (non-actionable conditions), and originless ache, the text proposes a rigorous metaphysical language for grief without event, presence without witness, and silence as density. Drawing from thinkers such as Heidegger, Jung, Irigaray, and Blanchot, the paper situates The Ghosts Codex as both a critique of form-centric ontologies and a structural philosophy of the dark axis, where the unformed is not empty, but full; not past, but pre-conditional. It invites a deeper reflection on the limits of return, the pressure beneath presence, and the permanent tension that holds all things formed. In doing so, it redefines what it means to think from the edge of the unenterable. (shrink)

This article first defines the absolute discourse, then discusses its possibility in theology, as well as the relationships between language, thought, and reality as they derive from the spirituality and life of the Eastern Church. Theology must face several problems—including the paradox of transcendence, the violence of metaphysics, onto-theology, and the duplicity of language itself—, but the Revelation of the Absolute itself legitimizes the theological discourse. By using both affirmations and negations, theology reveals an iconic structure of (...) discourse that opens itself towards life and spirituality. The conclusion is that, in the absolute discourse of theology, words, even ineffable ones, are insufficient without life. (shrink)

In this paper, a formal theory is presented that describes syntactic and semantic mechanisms of philosophical discourses. They are treated as peculiar language systems possessing deep derivational structures called architectonic forms of philosophical systems, encoded in philosophical mind. Architectonic forms are constituents of more complex structures called architectonic spaces of philosophy. They are understood as formal and algorithmic representations of various philosophical traditions. The formal derivational machinery of a given space determines its class of all possible architectonic forms. Some of (...) them stand under factual historical philosophical systems and they organize processes of doing philosophy within these systems. Many architectonic forms have never been realized in the history of philosophy. The presented theory may be interpreted as falling under Hegel’s paradigm of comprehending cultural texts. This paradigm is enriched and inspired with Propp’s formal, morphological view on texts. The peculiarity of this modification of the Hegel-Propp paradigm consists of the use of algebraic and algorithmic tools of modeling processes of cultural development. To speak metaphorically, the theory is an attempt at the mathematical and logical history of philosophy inspired by the Internet metaphor. And that is why it belongs to the tradition of doing metaphilosophy in The Lvov-Warsaw School, which is continued today mainly by Woleński, Pelc, Perzanowski, and Jadacki. (shrink)

In recent years, research on conspiracy theories has expanded, yet few studies have examined them from a discursive post-structuralist perspective. This paper provides a theoretical mapping of the structure of conspiracism as articulated in political discourse. Drawing on the Essex School of Discourse Analysis, it highlights the main discursive features of conspiracy theories and the conditions under which political discourse can be classified as conspiratorial. Moreover, focusing on Greece—a country marked by recurrent political and economic crises—this (...) paper analyzes how conspiratorial motifs are mobilized in the discourse of different political actors in the country, identifying their central or peripheral role. While the focus is not on verifying the truth of conspiracy theories or evaluating their political impact, we emphasize the importance of understanding how these theories are constructed and expressed in political contexts. In doing so, it contributes to a deeper theoretical and empirical understanding of the discursive architecture of conspiracism in politics. (shrink)

This paper introduces the Universal Human Grammar of Inversion, a cross-disciplinary framework for analyzing the deep structures of human discourse and meaning. At its core lies the observation that texts across eras and cultures display a recurrent symbolic dynamic: disruption (Rise), stabilization (Permanence), and reframing (Meta). This triadic pattern, termed the Structure of Inversion, shapes argument, narrative, and political rhetoric alike. Unlike earlier notions of a "universal human grammar" tied to syntax, this model operates at the symbolic and (...) semantic level, revealing a structural law underlying human meaning-making. Drawing on computational analysis of a diverse corpus spanning foundational philosophy, history, and literature, we demonstrate that these inversion structures can be detected empirically. The model identifies distinct "symbolic fingerprints" for genres and thinkers while correctly "flatlining" (registering near-zero signal) when applied to neutral technical baselines. This methodological falsifiability shows that discourse does not unfold randomly but follows embedded, detectable symbolic architectures. The significance of this approach is cross-disciplinary. It provides a comparative method to classify thinkers by their structural fingerprints, a replicable taxonomy for literary and historical genres, and a structural explanation for political rhetoric. These findings establish a new, falsifiable method for the comparative analysis of symbolic structures, grounding the study of human meaning in a universal law evidenced by a testable structural hypothesis. (shrink)

This paper applies Judgemental Philosophy to the discourse on neurodivergence, particularly conditions such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD), ADHD, and borderline personality disorder (BPD). We argue that these states should be understood not merely as behavioral differences or deficits, but as structural variations or collapses within the Judgemental Triad—Constructivity, Coherence, and Resonance. Neurodivergent conditions often reveal distinct patterns or difficulties in how judgements are formed (Constructivity), maintained consistently (Coherence), or returned meaningfully (Resonance). We explore how society tends to pathologize (...) ways of being it cannot structurally resonate with, often mistaking structural differences for individual failings. This paper proposes an alternative view: neurodivergence signals not necessarily a deficit, but a deviation or unique configuration in the architecture of cognitive and ethical judgement. The paper concludes with reflections on reconceptualizing recovery not as normalization, but as the restoration of functional Resonance loops and the creation of environments that can accommodate structural diversity in judgement. (shrink)

In this article, we describe the notion of dialogue move intended as the minimal unit for the analysis of dialogues. We propose an approach to discourse analysis based on the pragmatic idea that the joint dialogical intentions are also co-constructed through the individual moves and the higher-order communicative intentions that the interlocutors pursue. In this view, our goal is to bring to light the pragmatic structure of a dialogue as a complex net of dialogical goals, which represent the (...) communicative purposes that the interlocutors intend to achieve through their utterances. Dialogue moves are shown to represent the necessary interpretive link between the general description of the dialogical context or type and the syntactical analysis of the sentences expressed by the individual utterances. In the concluding part of this article, we show how this method can be used and further developed for analyzing various types of real-life dialogues, outlining possible uses and lines of empirical research based thereon. (shrink)

This study aims to examine the persuasive impact of metadiscourse (MD) markers in political speeches. It seeks to determine the extent to which MD practices contribute to the construction of persuasive discourse within this genre. To achieve this objective, a discourse analysis is applied to ten political speeches delivered by Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel. Hyland’s (2005a, 2005b) interpersonal models of MD are employed to investigate the frequency and persuasive impact of interactive and interactional devices utilized (...) in speeches. The research has revealed that the persuasive intent conveyed through MD was largely dependent on the context. Consequently, Netanyahu often employed a combination of techniques to structure his discourse, influence audiences, capture their attention, and engage them in arguments. In addition, interactional devices were employed more frequently than interactive ones, indicating that engaging audiences in arguments and demonstrating one’s stance and assessment of propositions were more likely to contribute to the construction of a persuasive political speech. The research results can be shared with foreign and second language learners, instructors, and speakers to enhance their understanding of the linguistic and pragmatic conventions employed in political discourse. Additionally, it can shed light on how persuasive discourse is constructed using MD markers. (shrink)

In the limited literature on gender and climate change, two themes predominate – women as vulnerable or virtuous in relation to the environment. Two viewpoints become obvious: women in the South will be affected more by climate change than men in those countries and that men in the North pollute more than women. The debates are structured in specific ways in the North and the South and the discussion in the article focuses largely on examples from Sweden and India. The (...) article traces the lineage of the arguments to the women, environment and development discussions, examining how they recur in new forms in climate debates. Questioning assumptions about women's vulnerability and virtuousness, it highlights how a focus on women's vulnerability or virtuousness can deflect attention from inequalities in decision-making. By reiterating statements about poor women in the South and the pro-environmental women of the North, these assumptions reinforce North–South biases. Generalizations about women's vulnerability and virtuousness can lead to an increase in women's responsibility without corresponding rewards. There is need to contextualise debates on climate change to enable action and to respond effectively to its adverse effects in particular places. (shrink)

Japanese discourse frequently omits overt subjects, yet interlocutors rarely experience communicative breakdown. This paper proposes a minimal four-layer model of subject representation that operates beyond the grammatical sentence. The model provides a structural explanation for topic–comment phenomena, zero-anaphora, and intersubjective stance-taking, while avoiding culture-specific assumptions. Additional parallels with historical authentication systems (e.g., wax seals) illustrate how information outside the explicit text contributes to interpretation. The model also predicts characteristic patterns of AI misreadings when surface cues are absent. This theory (...) is derived entirely from established international research on pragmatics, cognitive linguistics, and intersubjectivity, ensuring compatibility with existing debates. (shrink)

The nature of linguistic understanding is a much-debated topic. Among the issues that have been discussed, two questions have recently received a lot of attention: (Q1) ‘Are states of understanding direct (i.e. represent solely what is said) or indirect (i.e. represent what is said as being said/asserted)?’ and (Q2) ‘What kind of mental attitude is linguistic understanding (e.g. knowledge, belief, seeming)?’ This paper argues that, contrary to what is commonly assumed, there is no straightforward answer to either of these questions. (...) This is because linguistic understanding cannot be identified with a single mental attitude towards a particular representation. Instead, we should characterize states of linguistic understanding as involving complex representational structures generated by a dual-stream process. The first stream operates on direct representations of what is said, while the second operates on representations of what is said as being said/asserted by a given source. Both these streams feed a situation model, i.e. a complex representation of a state of affairs described by a given piece of discourse. (shrink)

We will explain why the Treatise on Basic Philosophy is a metascientific work and not a philosophical one. We will then argue that this meta-science is part of a long process of naturalization of thought that begins at the end of the Middle Ages to give birth to the scientific thought of the study of the world. For Bunge, naturalization takes the form of the naturalization of the general thought which makes it possible to replace philosophical general discourse with (...) scientific gen-eral discourse. Finally, this naturalization of general discourse should not be con-fused with the projects of naturalization of philosophy, in particular one of many projects of scientific or naturalized metaphysics known as ontic structural real-ism. (shrink)

The paper aims at disclosing the process of writer identity enactive construal in narrative writing. Three constituent parts of identity discoursal construction in the narrative are social semiotics as a reflection of the social environment, cultural identity theory as the embodiment of cultural choices and preferences, and pragmatics (Charles S. Peirce). The following research questions have been formulated: (1) What is the nature of identity construction? (2) What rhetorical factors influence identity construal in narrative discourse? By providing a step-by-step (...) analysis of thematic structure, the paper conducts a discourse analysis of narrative episodes in terms of Agent, Process, and Medium triad (Halliday, 1973), reflecting the mechanisms of reader’s manipulation with information as a dynamic semiotic process of interpretation, limited by a final interpretant. (shrink)

This paper challenges the growing discourse suggesting artificial intelligence (AI) may one day serve as a moral decision-maker or possess moral authority. Using the framework of Judgemental Philosophy, we argue that AI, regardless of its sophistication in simulating reasoning or consistency, is structurally ineligible for genuine moral judgement because it cannot satisfy the necessary preconditions defined by the Judgemental Triad (Constructivity, Coherence, and Resonance). While AI systems can exhibit high degrees of Constructivity (generating complex outputs from data) and Coherence (...) (maintaining internal logical or statistical consistency), they fundamentally lack Resonance—the affective and intersubjective return of meaning to a subject that grounds ethical judgement in lived experience and shared value structures. We contend that moral judgement and the authority derived from it require a self-affecting subjectivity capable of receiving the 'return' of its own attributions, a structure that current and foreseeable AI systems inherently lack. Delegating moral judgement to non-resonant systems poses significant risks to human ethical autonomy and the very structure of meaning. (shrink)

We argue that the mathematization of science should be understood as a normative activity of advocating for a particular methodology with its own criteria for evaluating good research. As a case study, we examine the mathematization of taxonomic classification in systematic biology. We show how mathematization is a normative activity by contrasting its distinctive features in numerical taxonomy in the 1960s with an earlier reform advocated by Ernst Mayr starting in the 1940s. Both Mayr and the numerical taxonomists sought to (...) formalize the work of classification, but Mayr introduced a qualitative formalism based on human judgment for determining the taxonomic rank of populations, while the numerical taxonomists introduced a quantitative formalism based on automated procedures for computing classifications. The key contrast between Mayr and the numerical taxonomists is how they conceptualized the temporal structure of the workflow of classification, specifically where they allowed meta-level discourse about difficulties in producing the classification. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to show whether the two crucial dimensions used for assessing the quality of argumentation, argument-as-a-product (argument structure) and argument-as-a-process (relevance), are interrelated, and how they can be used to assess the effect of argumentative mode on students’ arguments. To this purpose, a twofold coding scheme will be developed, aimed at capturing: a) the argumentative function of evidence use and b) the dialogical relevance of evidence use. A study will be described in which students’ (...) use of evidence is elicited in two distinct argumentative modes (dialogical vs. non-dialogical). According to the results, in the dialogical mode students tended to use evidence in a more sophisticated way from both argument evaluation perspectives. (shrink)

This paper offers a structural account of bioethical judgement in critical life-and-death situations—such as euthanasia, end-of-life care, and abortion—using the framework of Judgemental Philosophy and its Judgemental Triad (Constructivity, Coherence, Resonance). We argue that the frequent moral impasses encountered in these cases often arise not from a lack of information or compassion, but from a fundamental breakdown in the structural conditions required for meaningful judgement. Analyzing how each axis of the Triad—Constructivity (the ability to form a judgement), Coherence (consistency with (...) frameworks), and Resonance (meaningful return to affected parties)—is challenged or collapses in these dilemmas, we clarify why certain decisions feel inherently undecidable. Furthermore, we propose conditions under which institutional judgement (e.g., via ethical committees or legal frameworks) can be structurally justified as a necessary substitute when personal judgement becomes impossible due to the collapse of one or more axes. This framework aims to shift bioethical discourse from solely value-based disputes towards a structural diagnosis of judgemental possibility, offering a path toward more ethically sound resolutions in structurally compromised fields. (shrink)

The AI and AI alignment communities have been instrumental in addressing existential risks, developing alignment methodologies, and promoting rationalist problem-solving approaches. However, as AI research ventures into increasingly uncertain domains, there is a risk of premature epistemic convergence, where prevailing methodologies influence not only the evaluation of ideas but also determine which ideas are considered within the discourse. This paper examines critical epistemic blind spots in AI alignment research, particularly the lack of predictive frameworks to differentiate problems necessitating general (...) intelligence, decentralized intelligence, or innovative alignment methodologies. We analyze how heuristic-based epistemic filtering—favoring ideas that conform to established norms over those assessed purely on logical merit—may inadvertently constrain the field's potential for groundbreaking solutions. The semblance of rigor, wherein social consensus and stylistic conformity replace foundational reasoning, further intensifies this concern. To mitigate these issues, we advocate for an epistemically adaptive research environment that emphasizes structured evaluation of paradigm-challenging ideas, cross-disciplinary collaboration, and strategies to identify and reduce epistemic overfitting. By broadening the epistemic frameworks governing AI alignment discourse, the field can progress beyond incremental improvements toward discovering entirely new solution paradigms. Maintaining epistemic inclusivity in AI safety research is not only an intellectual necessity but also a crucial step in preparing alignment efforts for the challenges posed by rapid AI advancements. (shrink)

Drawing on recent work in formal pragmatic theory, this paper shows that the manipulation of discourse structure—in particular, by way of shifting the Question Under Discussion mid-discourse—can constitute an act of epistemic injustice. I argue that the “All Lives Matter” response to the “Black Lives Matter” slogan is one such case; this response shifts the Question Under Discussion governing the overarching discourse from Do Black lives matter? to Which lives matter? This manipulation of the discourse (...) structure systematically obscures the intended meaning of “Black lives matter” and disincentivizes future utterances of it. (shrink)

This essay develops a structural theory of modern violence that interprets war, political polarization, and geopolitical escalation as endogenous phase transitions within differentiated social systems. Building on an operator-based framework (Ω₁–Ω₄) and a fourfold model of teleological semantics (RO/RQ/SO/SQ), it introduces the concept of the bifurcation of Ω₄: the point at which accumulated tensions can either be reintegrated through transpersonal mediation (Ω₄⁺) or discharged through destructive re-homogenization (Ω₄⁻). The analysis distinguishes between reversible and irreversible dissolution, showing how rituals, tragic mediation, (...) and symbolic orders historically functioned as mechanisms for metabolizing conflict without collapsing into violence. It then reconstructs contemporary phenomena—such as hyper-moralized political discourse, Trumpism, and the erosion of the liberal international order—as surface expressions of a deeper teleological exhaustion. At the center of the argument stands a redefinition of spirituality as a structural competence to avoid Ω₄⁻. Spirituality is not treated as a belief system or religious identity, but as the capacity of cultures and institutions to reconnect processes of re-homogenization to transpersonal horizons of meaning. The essay concludes with a phase-sensitive diagnosis of modernity that rejects both apocalyptic fatalism and technocratic reductionism. (shrink)

Dreams are not real, so when we recount them we prefix an intensional operator like “I dreamed that…”. Linguists will analyze this construction in terms of clausal complementation syntax and possible worlds semantics. But talking about a dream is often more like telling a story, with a potentially complex discourse structure (involving propositional discourse units connected by coherence relations like NARRATION, BACKGROUND, and EXPLANATION) that is hard to fit inside a single syntactically embedded that-clause (or a sequence (...) of independently embedded clauses). I show how we can analyze actual, complex dream report stories using a formal discourse semantics framework. I then explore how to extend this discourse framework to visual dream reporting, like in movies and comics, where it’s not immediately clear that we even have any intensional operators or embeddings to begin with. (shrink)

This paper explores the relation between victims’ stories and normativity. As a contribution to understanding how the stories of those who have been abused or oppressed can advance moral understanding, catalyze moral innovation, and guide social change, this paper focuses on narrative as a variegated form of representation and asks whether personal narratives of victimization play any distinctive role in human rights discourse. In view of the fact that a number of prominent students of narrative build normativity into their (...) accounts, it might seem obvious that there is a connection between victims’ stories and moral insight. However, the category of victims’ stories spans an enormous variety of texts – private diaries, memoirs written for publication, interviews with journalists or social scientists, depositions prepared by human rights workers, stories shared with like-minded activists or with support groups, stories told to medical professionals, and testimony in courts, truth commissions and asylum hearings, to mention just some of the possibilities. The different contexts of elicitation and the different rules governing expression in these sites should make us wary of ready generalizations about the nature of victims’ narratives. Moreover, I doubt that existing explications of the way in which norms figure in narratives yield satisfactory theories of the contribution victims’ stories can make to discovering and defending just policies and practices. I consider two of the most prominent accounts of the relation between narrative and normativity. For different reasons, the account Anthony Amsterdam and Jerome Bruner present in their work on narrative and law and the account Hayden White presents in his work on narrative and history fail to appreciate the capacity of victims’ stories of abuse to advance understanding of and increase respect for human rights. In defense of the value of victims’ stories, I propose an account of the relation between normativity and a salient type of victim’s narrative that seems especially resistant to integration into human rights discourse. -/- . (shrink)

Friedrich Nietzsche’s contribution to philosophy is mostly recognized in relation to moral philosophy. His distinction of master and slave morality, critique of the Judeo-Christian morality is what is commonly considered as the main contribution of his philosophy. How-ever, on the other hand, his examination of metaphysics and epistemology comprises fun-damental constituents to apprehend his philosophy. Accordingly, it can be said, Nietzsche’s approach towards morality and politics is a demonstration of his analysis of metaphysics and epistemology. Since the construction of metaphysical (...) and epistemological grounds precedes the construction of ethical systems, the critique of morality is presupposed by the critique of its metaphysical and epistemological foundations. Therefore, the focus of this paper will not be Nietzsche’s critique of morality and politics. Rather, it will critically examine his criticism of the metaphysical and epistemological ba-sis that by virtue of their structural fundamentality acquired the generative potential of values (moral, political, economic, etc.). In view of that, by exposing the vitality of Nie-tzsche’s critique in his discourse on nihilism, the analysis will try to claim the conceptual centrality of nihilism in his philosophy. Furthermore, assert the possible understandability of his critique and discourse, which is mostly concentrated on the advent of European ni-hilism and its countermovement. (shrink)