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10The Philosophy of Computer LanguagesIn Luciano Floridi (ed.), The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Computing and Information, Blackwell. 2004.The prelims comprise: Introduction: Two Semantic Projects History The Uses of Semantics Conclusions.
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241Mathematics, isomorphism, and the identity of objectsJournal of Knowledge Structures and Systems 2 (2): 56-58. 2021.We compare the medieval projects of commentaries and disputations with the modern projects of formal ontology and of mathematics.
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26We examine a series of disputations which Luther participated in towards the end of his career: we argue that these disputations show that Luther was very familiar with the tools of medieval formal logic, and continued to make positive theological use of them until the end of his life.
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1033Semantics, Hermenutics, Statistics: Some Reflections on the Semantic WebProceedings of HCI2011. forthcoming.We start with the ambition -- dating back to the early days of the semantic web -- of assembling a significant portion human knowledge into a contradiction-free form using semantic web technology. We argue that this would not be desirable, because there are concepts, known as essentially contested concepts, whose definitions are contentious due to deep-seated ethical disagreements. Further, we argue that the ninetenth century hermeneutical tradition has a great deal to say, both about the ambiti…Read more
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24Notions of Information: Remarks on Fresco’s PaperPhilosophy and Technology 26 (1): 61-65. 2013.We compare Fresco’s analysis of the Turing machine-based notion of computation with that of others, in particular with functional programming and with the reversible computing paradigm of Toffoli and others. We conclude that, although much useful philosophical work can be done by the sort of analysis that Fresco proposes, there is, nevertheless, always likely to be a number of individually viable but different accounts of computation
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23Luther on Ecclesiastes and the limits of human abilityNeue Zeitschrift für Systematicsche Theologie Und Religionsphilosophie 29 (1-3): 180-194. 1987.We analyse Luther's commentary on the biblical book of Ecclesiastes, and describe the rather elaborate theory of causality and power which he uses.
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39Medieval Theories of CausationStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2018.Causality plays an important role in medieval philosophical writing: even before the rediscovery of Aristotle's major works, the created universe was seen as a rational manifestation of God's action. In the later Middle Ages, the dominant genre of medieval academic writing was the commentary on an authoritative work: Aristotle's Physics and Metaphysics were frequently commented on, and both contain a great deal of material on causation. So the nature of the philosophical and theological themes…Read more
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22Hardware, Software, Humans: Truth, Fiction and AbstractionHistory and Philosophy of Logic 36 (3): 278-301. 2015.We start with a example of assembler programming, and show how even at this low level the structure of the programming language does not directly mirror the structure of the hardware, but that it is also decisively influenced by the human practices surrounding computer use, and that assembly language gives a view of the hardware which is accommodated to human interests and capabilities. We give several historical examples and illustrate the changing pattern of mutual accommodation between human …Read more
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12An introduction to modern European philosophy (edited book)St. Martin's Press. 1995.An Introduction to Modern European Philosophy , contains scholarly but accessible essays by nine British academics on Hegel, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Marx, Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Maritain, Hannah Arendt, Habermas, Foucault, and the 'Events' of 1968. Written for English-speaking readers, it describes the varied traditions within 19th- and 20th-century European philosophy, reflecting the dynamism and plurality within the European tradition and presenting oppos…Read more
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Papers of the 16th International Wittgenstein Symposium, vol. I (edited book)The Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society. 1993.
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20Handbook of philosophical logic (review)History and Philosophy of Logic 25 (2): 147-152. 2004.D. M. GABBAY and F. GUENTHER, Handbook of philosophical logic, 2nd edn, vol. 9. Dordrecht, Boston, London: Kluwer, 2002. xiv + 368 pp. €129.00, US$112.00, £79.00. ISBN1 402 00699 3. The philo...
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1756Philosophy and Cognitive Sciences: Proceedings of the 16th International Wittgenstein Symposium (Kirchberg Am Wechsel, Austria 1993) (edited book)Wien: Hölder-Pichler-Tempsky. 1994.Online collection of papers by Devitt, Dretske, Guarino, Hochberg, Jackson, Petitot, Searle, Tye, Varzi and other leading thinkers on philosophy and the foundations of cognitive Science. Topics dealt with include: Wittgenstein and Cognitive Science, Content and Object, Logic and Foundations, Language and Linguistics, and Ontology and Mereology.