Lorenzo Peña

This essay belongs to a series of papers whose aim is to show that some differing accounts of relations in contemporary philosophy are flawed because they resort to what can be labelled `hylomorphism'. Some standard difficulties of Aristotelianism reappear in these analytical approaches. All of them resort to «form» as playing the role of `«ctualizing» a given «matter» by making it into another entity. In these accounts the actualizing or structuring form lacks the quality it bestows upon the matter it clings to. The puzzle lies in those forms' baffling slipperiness; for they cannot be meant or intended outside their role of actualizing or informing some matter. But, when we point to their playing such a role, we cannot mean or intend the form itself, but only the informed matter -- or, if you please, the result of its being thus informed. For some approaches, a problem also arises concerning matter itself, one closely resembling Aristotelian problems with prime matter -- problems which have prompted some interpreters to deny that Aristotle posited any such entity Foot note 1_1. What in these approaches plays the role of Aristotelian matter, when taken «prior to» or outside of its being «informed» by a form, lacks sufficient self being and endowment with qualities and ontological profile to be an entity directly meant as such. Such a problem e.g. affects Tractarian «objects», which are both form and content, but which can be meant as neither separately. It follows that their ipseity always eludes us and evades being meant or signified. As we are about to see, a similar problem affects Bergmann's new ontology

The concept of every real thing from all eternity contains the unavoidability of its existence before the divine decision. Thus every complete concept of a real thing contains the property of being such that the thing will exist if a created universe exists. Then a thing's existence cannot be external to its concept. There is bound to be more in the concept of something that exists than in that of "something" that does not-since existence is explained through the quidditative property of being an essence that constitutes an integral part of the most perfect series of things. Such an essential, quidditative perfection explains the divine decision, and hence existence. Therefore, existence can be deduced from that essential perfection. The essence-as-such, the mere possible, contains something from which existence follows. What Leibniz never manages to explain is what distinguishes existence from the quidditative perfection it unavoidably stems from. (edited)

Arthur Lovejoy's masterful, highly influential interpretation of Leibniz's philosophy has been almost neglected for decades now. This paper tries to rehabilitate Lovejoy's construal (with a number of adaptations) by delving into the underlying logical links connecting Leibniz's principles of order and gradation (the latter also called `law of continuity', `principle of transition' or `principle of the jumpless change': natura non facit saltus ) with other fundamental principles of his mature philosophy

It is widely known that Plato seems to be committed in a number of dialogues to the view that all perfections are “united” — whether such unity is construed as identity, which doesn’t lack textual evidence, or, more probably, as some kind of mutual “supervenience”. (See for instance Laches 199e3-4, Alcib. I 114d-116d, Protag. 329c-333d & 349a-c. Whatever the solution to those interpretive problems is, what anyway can be ascertained is that, when writing the Statesman, our philosopher is keen on maintaining that not only is it not the case that all perfections are identical, but, moreover, some perfections do in fact clash with others, which means that a thing can possess one of them only to the extent it lacks the opposite perfection. However, as we’re going to see straight away, the Statesman’s main purpose and thrust is likely to be that of emphasizing the necessity of some unity among opposite qualities. The significance of such a contention can be set off against what will become the Aristotelian (and in effect the commonly received) view on the topic. In the Statesman Plato recognizes that in each case there is some desirable mean between the extremes, but where it lies changes according to circumstances. Trying to secure that convenient mean doesn’t debar us from loking upon the extremes under consideration as virtues or perfections themselves. Thus, when the Statesman is drawing towards its conclusion, the Foreigner abruptly brings up the issue of υπερβολην και την ελλειψιν (283c3-4), and thereby that of the art of measuring (η µετρητικη). Immediately the problem arises of the relations between the opposite extremes. In Theaet. 152d, 157a, 160b-c, it appears that Plato distinguishes relative from non-relative properties or determinations in the same way as he does between empirical, earthly, changeable things and the Forms. Yet in his later dialogues Plato is clearly committed to holding the view that the Forms themselves enter a number of relations, and even that some Forms partake of others. Since very early onwards he seems to have been concerned about some reciprocal relativity of opposite qualities (there are many places where such relativity is stressed, as Charm. 168b5-169a5, Phaed..

The main starting point of many of the contributions collected into the book is the kind of Twin Earth considerations, along with meaning individualism. Is Putnam's claim about water in this world and a stuff in an alternative world being different materials?. Is meaning in the head? One seems allowed to be skeptical about the starting point of the debate between such as emphasize broad content and those who think that the basic semantic entities are narrow contents, which would fail to be world-dependent or world-oriented. The kind of motivations prompting the essays collected into the book are likely to be regarded as in need of a deeper elucidation by such as have been more or less influenced by Quine. Pettit & McDowell's collection of essays is one of the books most scholars interested in the confines of philosophy of language and philosophy of mind will find worth reading.

The main claim of this paper is that the boundary between scientific and non scientific knowledge does exist -- which means several things. First, it's not the case that anything goes: some irrationalists have been mistaken into acceptance of that wrong conclusion because they have remarked that, however the boundary might be drawn, some important scientific developments would fall afoul of the standards entitling a research practice to count as scientific. Second, the boundary is not an imaginary one, that is to say besides what is scientific and what is unscientific there also is what lies at the boundary, certain research practices which are neither wholly scientific nor fully unscientific. Third, studying what is science is itself a kind of research belonging to the boundary, since the methods available in that research are not as strictly rigorous as those used in science proper; in fact, all of philosophy is included in the boundary in question. Fourth, the boundary (and in fact science itself) displays a characteristic structure pertaining to what are by now usually called «non wellfounded sets» -- sets, that is, which are somehow or other involved in themselves, whether as members, or as members of members or so on; the significance of the last thesis is that the best way of approaching philosophy of science is not standard set theory, but theories allowing non wellfounded sets are preferable. Fifth, and last, admission of the boundary's existence compels us to go beyond standard classical logic and to look for a more suitable logic, as for instance some kind of fuzzy paraconsistent logic.