Christian Martin

We introduce and study a natural extension of Marcus external contextual grammars. This mathematically simple mechanism which generates a proper subclass of simple matrix languages, known to be mildly context-sensitive ones, is still mildly context-sensitive. Furthermore, we get an infinite hierarchy of mildly context-sensitive families of languages. Then we attempt to fill a gap regarding the linguistic relevance of these mechanisms which consists in defining a tree structure on the strings generated by many-dimensional external contextual grammars, and investigate some related issues. Several open problems are finally discussed

_English summary:_ Hegel conceived his Science of Logic as a theory of pure thinking as well as a successor discipline to traditional metaphysics. Christian Georg Martin offers an argumentative reconstruction of the whole work, reading it as a critical ontology, namely as the attempt to abstract from all presuppositions and to immanently unfold conceptual determinations characterizing what necessarily belongs to there being anything at all. The reconstruction culminates in the conception of a physically, chemically and biologically characterizable continuum, being necessarily transformed by embodied subjects into a common, significant world, in which freedom has concrete reality._ German description:_ Hegel versteht seine Wissenschaft der Logik zugleich als Theorie reinen Denkens und als kritische Nachfolgedisziplin zur uberkommenen Metaphysik. Christian Georg Martin legt eine argumentative Gesamtrekonstruktion von Hegels Hauptwerk vor und deutet dieses als kritische Ontologie - als eine nach Ausserkraftsetzung aller dogmatischen Vorannahmen rein im Denken vollzogene Entfaltung begrifflicher Bestimmungen, die ausdrucken, was dazu, dass uberhaupt etwas ist, notwendig gehort. Der systematische Ertrag seiner Arbeit besteht im Nachweis, dass dazu, dass uberhaupt etwas ist, ein physikalisch, chemisch und biologisch charakterisierbares Naturkontinuum gehort, in dem leibhaftige Selbstbestimmungszentren - Personen - hervortreten, welche dieses Kontinuum zu einer gemeinsamen, bedeutsamen Welt gestalten, in der Freiheit konkrete Realitat hat.

Recent years have seen new systematic interest in Hegel‘s philosophical conception of the physical universe. It has become clear that Hegel‘s account of nature is revealing both on its own as well as by providing a non-naturalist understanding of the place of mind in nature. This element focuses on the very foundations and method of Hegel’s philosophy of nature, relating them to Newtonian and to modern physics. The volume also sheds light on Hegel’s global account of the physical universe as a material space-time system and on his ecological conception of the Earth as a habitable planet populated by organic life. By drawing connections to relativity theory and earth systems science it is shown that Hegel’s conception of nature is very much philosophically alive and can complement scientific accounts of nature in illuminating ways. Due to rigid external constraints the version of the book published by Cambridge University Press only comprises two chapters, one on Hegel’s conception of nature in general, the other on his account of space, time, matter and motion in Mechanics. This makes the version published by CUP a fragmented, rather than a comprehensive treatment of Hegel’s philosophy of nature. I had in fact written and wished to include a third chapter dealing with the remaining parts of Hegel’s philosophy of nature. This text, entitled “Physics and Organic Physics: from States of Matter to Life on Earth,” will be made available on my academia, philpapers, and University of Stuttgart webpages.

This volume deals with the connection between thinking-and-speaking and our form of life. All contributions engage with Wittgenstein’s approach to this topic. As a whole, the volume takes a stance against both biological and ethnological interpretations of the notion "form of life" and seeks to promote a broadly logico-linguistic understanding instead. The structure of this book is threefold. Part one focuses on lines of thinking that lead from Wittgenstein’s earlier thought to the concept of form of life in his later work. Contributions to part two examine the concrete philosophical function of this notion as well as the ways in which it differs from cognate concepts. Contributions to part three put Wittgenstein’s notion of form of life in perspective by relating it to phenomenology, ordinary language philosophy and problems in contemporary analytic philosophy.

Introduction: Endotracheal intubation in the prehospital setting poses unique challengeswhere multiple ETI attempts are associated with adverse patient outcomes. Early identificationof difficult ETI cases will allow providers to tailor airway-man agement efforts to minimizecomplications associated with ETI. We sought to derive and validate a prehospital difficult airwayidentification tool based on predictors of difficult ETI in other settings. Methods: We prospectively collected patient and airway data on all airway attempts from 16Advanced Life Support ground emergency medical services agencies from January2011 to October 2014. Cases that required more than two ETI attempts and cases where analternative airway strategy was employed after one unsuccessful ETIattempt were categorized as “difficult.” We used a random allocation sequence to split the datainto derivation and validation subsets. Using backward elimination, factors with a p 3, limited neckmovement, trismus/jaw clenched, inability to palpate thelandmarks of the neck, and fluid in the airwa y such as blood or emesis. This was the most parsimonious model and exhibited good fit with an AUC of 0.68. When applied to the validatio n set,the model had an AUC of 0.63 with high specificity for identifying di fficult ETI if >2factors were present ). Conclusion: We have developed a simple tool using five factors that may aid p rehospitalproviders in the identification of difficult ETI.

Wittgenstein on the formation of concepts This article envisages Wittgenstein‘s account of concepts from a somewhat unusual angle. Instead of directly addressing the topic of ‛family resemblance’, it rather targets a misleading philosophical picture of concepts. According to this picture, concepts have ‛counterparts’ contained in the things that fall under them (§1). It is in the course of a critique of this idea that Wittgenstein introduces an alternative view of concepts that is guided by the picture of family resemblances (§2). However, attempts to spell-out a family resemblant conception of concepts have long been known to be subject to the so-called problem of ‛wide open texture’. According to this problem, extending a concept in a way that is guided by resemblances between its instances threatens its content with arbitrariness (§3). Examining existing solutions, the article provides a view of concepts as neither determined by how things are nor as merely contingent expressions of historically changeable speaker dispositions (§§4 – 5). Rather, concepts are shown to be logical achievements whose expansion in the face of unprecedented circumstances brings about an increase of knowledge that is reflected in them (§§6 – 7). It is then argued that the logico-epistemic dimension of our use of concept words is interspersed with contingent features which might conceal their rational form (§8). The article ends with remarks that seek to exhibit the account of concepts presented before as a foil of Wittgenstein‘s critique of culture (§9).

The development of a compositional model shows the incoherence of such notions as levels of being and both bottom-up and top-down causality. The mathematization of nature through the partial considerations of physics qua quantities is seen to lead to Pythagoreanism, if what is not included in the partial consideration is denied. An ontology of only probabilities, if not Pythagoreanism, is equivalent to a world of primitive dispositionalities. Problems are found with each. There is a need for properties as well as quantities and these properties must be qualitative as well as dispositional. So there is a need for physical qualia (qualities) for the depiction of the intrinsic character of the finest interstices of nature.

Die Untersuchung zielt auf eine systematische Begründung der von Frege und Wittgenstein initiierten sprachphilosophischen Wende. Ihr zentrales Thema ist das Verhältnis zwischen Gedanken und ihrem Ausdruck. Entwickelt wird eine neuartige Begründung dafür, dass wir im Denken nicht zufällig auf den Gebrauch von Ausdrücken angewiesen sind. Vielmehr sind Gedanken notwendig an Ausdruck gekoppelt, ohne sich mit diesem gleichsetzen zu lassen. Dabei wird die logisch-philosophische Wende zur Sprache zu einer Wende zum Ausdruck verallgemeinert: Dem sprachlich artikulierten Denken muss ein vorsprachliches Denken vorangehen, dessen Ausdruck etwa gestisch-mimischer Art sein kann. Allerdings weist das vorsprachliche Denken aufgrund seiner eigenen Beschränktheit über sich hinaus. Die Untersuchung erweist die Sprache so als Leistung der Vernunft statt als bloss naturhafte Voraussetzung von deren Ausübung.

Nowadays, the high-temperature plasticity of yttria-stabilized tetragonal zirconia polycrystals is successfully explained in terms of a threshold stress. Despite the fact that its existence is very well proved experimentally, the origin and nature of the threshold stress are still unexplained. This work develops a possible explanation for the threshold stress in YTZPs. The model developed in this paper is able to explain quantitatively the dependence of this threshold stress with temperature and grain size. The model is able to predict the influence of a glassy phase present at grain boundaries and the values of the threshold stress in YTZP nanocrystals. The theoretical results are discussed and compared with the available data in the literature

Frege distinguished the thought qua logical content from the assertoric force attached to it when judged to be true. The gist of this distinction is captured by the so-called Frege-Geach point. Recently, several authors have drawn inspiration from Wittgenstein to reject this point and the distinction it is based on. This article proceeds from the observation that Wittgenstein himself did not reject the force-content distinction but urged us to reformulate it in a non-dualistic way. While drawing on Wittgensteinian lessons about thought and its expression, the overall purpose of this paper is systematic, not exegetic: it seeks to contribute to the contemporary debate aboute force and content by arguing that this distinction should be redrawn in such a way as to exhibit force as internal to thought, namely, as that which provides for the unity of thought. To this end, it is investigated what it is for a thought to occur as a forceless part of a propositionally complex assertion (e. g. for p to occur as a part of the assertion that not p).

Hegel draws a distinction between ‘judgements’ and ‘posits’. Judgements serve to explicate a unified subject matter, while posits do not. Because different forms of judgement are marked by specific combinations of logical constants with certain types of predicates, statements combining logical constants with predicates not ‘suited’ for each other cannot express judgements, but only posits. Current accounts of Hegel’s concept of judgement tend either to ignore or reject his conception of posits. This article shows that Hegel’s exclusion of a vast variety of well-formed statements from the realm of judgements contains a valuable insight rather than a flaw. It demonstrates that certain statements, even if correct, cannot contribute to the explication of a non-arbitrarily unified subject matter. Doing justice to Hegel’s notion of posit thus serves to motivate his general conception of judgement as well as his classification of particular types of judgement.

Is poetry a topic for philosophical reflection? This paper seeks to argue that it is by exhibiting poetry as a form of knowledge. What the claim that poetry is a form of knowledge amounts to is that something can be knowledge in virtue of being poetical and poetical in virtue of being the (kind of) knowledge it is. Various kinds of skeptical doubt about this claim are considered. It is argued that such doubts are based on distorting pictures of poetry. Two strategies to justify the claim that poetry is a form of knowledge shall be explored. The first strategy is a broadly Wittgensteinian one, relying on grammatical reminders. The second strategy is a broadly Hegelian one, exhibiting poetry as a form of knowledge by showing that the concepts of two other forms of knowledge – practical and second-person knowledge – due to internal incoherences, point beyond themselves towards the concept of poetry.