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Linguistic and Philosophical Investigations
VOLUME 4 • NUMBER 1 • MARCH 2005

Linguistic and Philosophical Investigations
VOLUME 4 • NUMBER 2 • NOVEMBER 2005

Linguistic and Philosophical Investigations
VOLUME 5 • NUMBER 1 • MARCH 2006

Linguistic and Philosophical Investigations
VOLUME 5 • NUMBER 2 • 2006

Linguistic and Philosophical Investigations
VOLUME 6 • 2007

Linguistic and Philosophical Investigations
VOLUME 7 • 2008

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Linguistic and Philosophical Investigations
VOLUME 4 • NUMBER 1 • MARCH 2005

SYNTACTIC LIARS

HARTLEY SLATER

ABSTRACT. The difficulty with syntactic liars is that there would seem to be very good reason to identify the thing said which is true with the thing said which is false. Natural language does allow consistent semantic closure, once we investigate indirect speech further, and so see that there can be no general 1-1 correspondence between speech and meaning. Back to contents

WHY ANYTHING? WHY THIS?

DEREK PARFIT

ABSTRACT. We should not expect simplicity at both the factual and explanatory levels. If there is no Selector, we should not expect that there would also be no Universe. Back to contents

CONFIRMABILITATE SI INTELES FACTUAL DEPLIN

RICHARD SWINBURNE

ABSTRACT. The confirmationist principle is false because there are factually meaningful statements which are neither observation-statements nor (dis)confirmable by observation statements. Even if the principle were true, it would not be of great value in sorting out factually meaningful statements from others. Back to contents

WHY PHILOSOPHY IS EASY

JACOB NEEDLEMAN

ABSTRACT. The search for wisdom philo-sophia requires a uniquely extensive preparation and is the proximal goal of education. Philosophy is thus not a part of education, but its first end-purpose. For the philosopher, to know is to experience via the activity of the nous. Back to contents

METAFIZICA IN VIZIUNEA LUI VASILE CONTA

ALEXANDRU SURDU

ABSTRACT. Reality is constituted of particulars, whether substances or events, with the properties that characterize them and the relations that interrelate them. The natural order consists of material particles in various configurations, moving and reconfiguring in accordance with physical law. Back to contents

VALOAREA CA REFERINTA

ALEXANDRU BOBOC

ABSTRACT. The central problem concerning aesthetic value is that it is not merely in the eye of the beholder, while yet it seems to require the eye of the beholder in order to exist. The traditional way of marking out aesthetic value from truth, goodness, or utility is to provide an account of beauty. Back to contents

UNDERSTANDING QUINE'S THESES OF INDETERMINACY

NICK BOSTROM

ABSTRACT. The author attempts to clear up some of the misunderstandings, to provide a satisfactory formulation of the thesis of indeterminacy of translation in non-naturalistic terms, to demonstrate how a naturalistic substitute can be derived from this formulation, to refute the best known arguments for and against the thesis, and to show how it relates to the thesis of indeterminacy of reference, the theses of semantic and epistemic holism and to the thesis of underdetermination of theory by data. Back to contents

GRAMATICA SI MULTIMI (I)

HARTLEY SLATER

ABSTRACT. We obtain a better definition of the natural numbers after considering a more elementary case where the language of Set Theory is insufficient to complete an important definition. That set-theoretic language is far removed from the ordinary language of number of things, and even sets of them. The very possibility of there being a number of Ss is contingent, specifically on the term "S" being count. Back to contents

DEZVOLTAREA FILOSOFIEI LINGVISTICE

MARIN TURLEA

ABSTRACT. The central principle of linguistic philosophy is that the traditional problems of philosophy are not genuine problems at all but confusions generated by misunderstandings about language or by the misuse of it. The findings of psycholinguistics strongly support the claim that grammatical information is not merely an artefact of theory but is psychologically real. Back to contents

LA SPÉCIFICITÉ DE LA CONCEPTION DELEUZIENNE DU CORPS

GEORGE LAZAROIU

ABSTRACT. The body in the world is the example that illustrates that between the visible and the invisible the relation is one of "embrace". There is no thetic thought, but only a particular thickness that defines flesh. In the body-world relation, good dialectic, as permanent annulment of its own position, is present. Back to contents

CHOMSKY ON LANGUAGE, MIND AND KNOWLEDGE

MADALINA NICOLOF

ABSTRACT. Chomsky develops a theory of linguistics as a discipline of natural sciences or physical sciences, which are empirically based. In syntax the basic data admitted by Chomsky include pretheoretical facts about what is and what is not a sentence in the given language. Back to contents

PREMISE BLAGIENE - DE LA METAFIZICA LOGOS-ULUI SPRE O ALTA MOTIVARE A LIMBAJULUI

DAIANA CUIBUS

ABSTRACT. Even if we had access to objects in a Platonic third world, and had a mapping of terms and sentences onto these objects, that would do nothing for us unless those objects were already signs which had intrinsic meaning; the same would go for a picture in the world of physical or mental representations. Back to contents

THE WTO AND GLOBAL GOVERNANCE

CONSTANTIN LAPADAT

ABSTRACT. The WTO agreements are enforced through a compulsory dispute settlement mechanism backed by an effective system of sanctions. Within national polities, the WTO does not restrict debate on trade questions such as whether a new round should be launched. The WTO needs to rely on cosmopolitical constituencies for guidance and support. Back to contents

PROIECTUL DEMOCRATIC RADICAL AL LUI ROUSSEAU

CARMEN PALACEAN

ABSTRACT. In Rousseau's view, the sources of corruption lie in the individual's own make-up, but tend to be deepened and consolidated by social processes or envious competition and desire for precedence. However, it is possible to envisage a different basis for human society and hence a different destiny for men. Back to contents

KANT AND THE POSSIBILITY OF MORAL MOTIVATION

GIORGIANA-GRATIELA BALACEANU

ABSTRACT. Kant stresses both self-legislation and self-government as essential to autonomy, in addition to its foundational role in endowing persons with dignity. Knowledge of moral generalizations is prior to knowledge of specific moral judgments, for example the judgment that a given sentence is unjust. Back to contents

HOW THE LAW RULES

ION ZAULET

ABSTRACT. Rights-based theories are more concerned with the recognition and formulation of the rule of law as a form of political morality. A state could be responsible for the acts of individuals it employs as its agents without there being the need of fault on behalf of the ruler himself. Back to contents

CHOMSKY'S SEMANTIC INTERPRETATION IN GENERATIVE GRAMMAR

ADRIAN CONSTANTINESCU

ABSTRACT. By a generative grammar Chomsky means a system of rules that in some explicit and well-defined way assigns structural descriptions to sentences. Deep structures are generated by the base rule of the syntactic component. Back to contents

DOSSO DOSSI'S "JUPITER, MERCURY, AND VIRTUE" - A SAMPLE OF GENRE ANALYSIS (OF A TEXT BY ANDREE HAYUM) (I)

ANDA-ELENA CRETIU

ABSTRACT. Compositional canons tend to place the most important thing/character in the focal point and, probably, the center of a painting would be such a position. A basic device the discourse about art deals with is the formal analysis, viewed both as a genre with its own purposes and structure, and as a discoursal strategy serving to achieving other genre's goals. Back to contents

KANT - A PARADIGM OF A RATIONALIST IN MORAL EPISTEMOLOGY

ROBERTH SÜTÖ

ABSTRACT. The will is practical reason, and therefore a genuine moral judgment, which represents a deliverance of practical reason, must be motivating. Virtue signifies a moral strength of will. The experienced sense of doing duty is clearest when one is acting against inclination, though we need not take it to occur only then. Back to contents

DEVENIREA INTRU FIINTA SI PROBLEMATICA SPIRITUALA

OANA GHERMAN

ABSTRACT. The contrast between being (in the sense of existence) and essence is itself an ancient one, rooted in the distinction between accidental and essential properties. There is an ontic duality that cannot be confused with the ontological one and which allows for transcendence and immanence to come together. Back to contents

FORME ALE EGALITARISMULUI ECONOMIC

CONSTANTIN LAPADAT

ABSTRACT. The advanced capitalist world has pushed through a series of changes in international economic laws, which lay the legal foundation for capital accumulation in the era of globalization by prescribing uniform global standards. Underpinning the emerging global state is a web of sub-national authorities and spaces that represent its decentralized face. Back to contents

COMPOSITIONAL BREAKTHROUGHS VERSUS REVOLUTIONARY PIANISTIC TECHNIQUES

LUMINITA POGACEANU

ABSTRACT. The mature development of a piano student's ability to realize aesthetic value in the music they study is a vital aspect of piano instruction. A good performance involves more than pushing down the right keys at the right moment. The performer has become less knowledgeable in some respects. Back to contents

LA RÉFLEXION DE RICOEUR SUR LE JUSTE

CARMEN PALACEAN

ABSTRACT. Although discourse about justice is often influenced by models of law, the ethics of justice is a subject in itself. To treat persons unequally with respect to distribution of important benefits and burdens, in the absence of a justification, is a paradigm of injustice. Back to contents

CICERO, NATURAL JUSTICE AND THE JUS GENTIUM

GIORGIANA-GRATIELA BALACEANU

ABSTRACT. Cicero's views of the specific rights or iura deriving from natural justice can be dealt with under three headings: personal, social, and political. Cicero's views on private property and the role of the state in the distribution of wealth are uncompromising and characteristic of conservative republican sentiment. Back to contents

THE ACQUISITION OF SYNTACTIC KNOWLEDGE IN ASPECTS

ADRIAN CONSTANTINESCU

ABSTRACT. Chomsky's tacit competence is supposed to be knowledge of the particular rules of the grammar. Chomsky identifies a theory of language learning with the construction of a language "acquisition model". A linguistic-acquisition model must duplicate language-learning behavior. Back to contents

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Linguistic and Philosophical Investigations
VOLUME 4 • NUMBER 2 • NOVEMBER 2005

THE EVOLUTION OF LIFE ON EARTH AND THE UNIQUENESS OF HUMANKIND

FRANCISCO J. AYALA

ABSTRACT. Ayala reviews our knowledge of human evolution and points out that we are "unique" in a fundamental way; most notably we have "culture," a distinctive form of heredity that supports cultural evolution, a mode of adaptation to the environment much more effective than the biological mode. Whether there may be intelligent beings elsewhere in the universe must be responded to with an unequivocal "no." The improbabilities involved surpass by many orders of magnitude the probable number of planets suitable for life in the Universe. Back to contents

SECOND PHILOSOPHY

PENELOPE MADDY

ABSTRACT. The Second Philosopher has various methods of finding out about the world, beginning with observation, and as she builds and tests and modifies her theories, she also studies, tests and refines those methods themselves. She has seen, in her day, implementations of various bad procedures for finding out about the world, like astrology and creationism, and she can explain in detail what's wrong with these methods. Back to contents

IN DEFENSE OF POSTHUMAN DIGNITY

NICK BOSTROM

ABSTRACT. This paper distinguishes two common fears about the posthuman and argues for the importance of a concept of dignity that is inclusive enough to also apply to many possible posthuman beings. Recognizing the possibility of posthuman dignity undercuts an important objection against human enhance- ment and removes a distortive double standard from our field of moral vision. Back to contents

ANALITIC/SINTETIC

RICHARD SWINBURNE

ABSTRACT. There are two distinct clear analytic/synthetic distinctions. The class of "analytic" truths, at any rate as the term has been used in this century, has been supposed to be the class of those which were necessary for reasons of logic in a wide sense. There seems no need to restrict the term to a proper sub-class of that class. Neither of our two distinctions is the same in meaning as the distinction between the a priori and the a posteriori, nor the same as the distinction between the necessary and the contingent. Back to contents

EXPERIENCES, SUBJECTS, AND CONCEPTUAL SCHEMES

DEREK PARFIT

ABSTRACT. According to reductionism about persons, there are no souls or Cartesian Egos, and our existence consists in the existence of a body and a related sequence of mental events. According to reductionism about reasons, there are no irreducibly normative truths, and when we have some reason for acting, that fact consists in some fact about our motivation, or the effects of our acts. Back to contents

GRAMATICA SI MULTIMI (II)

HARTLEY SLATER

ABSTRACT. We obtain a better definition of the natural number after considering a more elementary case where the language of Set Theory is insufficient to complete an important definition. That set-theoretic language is far removed from the ordinary language of number of things, and even sets of them. The very possibility of there being a number of Ss is contingent, specifically on the term "S" being count. Back to contents

SINN, BEDEUTUNG AND THE PARADOX OF ANALYSIS

MICHAEL BEANEY

ABSTRACT. An analysis should not be regarded as simply trying to capture our pre-existing conceptions, although our ordinary understanding does act as a constraint. The aim of analysis is to extend or refine rather than replace our ordinary conceptions, for particular purposes. What makes an analysis a good one is its success, as part of some overall theory, in convincing us that our ordinary discourse is indeed imprecise, and requires refinement for theoretical purposes. Back to contents

REALISM, REFERENCE AND GRUE (WHY METAPHYSICAL REALISM CANNOT SOLVE THE GRUE PARADOX)

MARY KATE MCGOWAN

ABSTRACT. Although metaphysical realism affords objective kinds, it cannot afford an objectivist solution to the grue paradox. Since a subjectivist solution to the grue paradox has such powerful non-realist consequences, a MRist may well wish to avoid those consequences (one must afford an objective distinction between the inductively appropriate properties and all the rest). There are a variety of ways that this may be done. Back to contents

TEORIA LEGATURILOR ESTE COMPATIBILA CU PARTICULARELE INDISCERNABILE DISTINCTE

GONZALO RODRIGUEZ-PEREYRA

ABSTRACT. The Bundle Theory neither entails nor is committed to (PII); not only is the Bundle Theory compatible with the falsity of (PII), it can be used to refute (PII). The version of the Bundle Theory here developed does not identify particulars with bundles of universals. But it is faithful to the spirit motivating it since, unlike the Substratum Theory, it makes universals exhaust particulars (entirely constituted by universals). Back to contents

THE FABLE OF THE DRAGON-TYRANT

NICK BOSTROM

ABSTRACT. Stories about aging have traditionally focused on the need for graceful accommodation. The recommended solution to diminishing vigor and impending death was resignation coupled with an effort to achieve closure in practical affairs and personal relationships. Given that nothing could be done to prevent or retard aging, this focus made sense. Rather than fretting about the inevitable, one could aim for peace of mind. Today we face a different situation. While we still lack effective and acceptable means for slowing the aging process, we can identify research directions that might lead to the development of such means in the foreseeable future. Back to contents

THE ELUSIVE NATURE OF MUSICAL TRUTH

LUMINITA POGACEANU

ABSTRACT. Music cannot represent things in the way painting can; when music attempts to depict sounds, it becomes what it is depicting, by virtue of being a sound itself. Even if music can represent things in some way, the representational element is irrelevant to the appreciation of the work. All tonal music, regardless of its expressive content, builds on the harmonic principles of tension and release. The truth-value we may speak of in music lies not in its musical value, but rather within its capacity to break away from musical convention and shopworn form. Back to contents

QUINE ON TRUTH, MEANING AND ANALYTICITY

GEORGE LAZAROIU

ABSTRACT. Quine treats logical truths as very high-level generalizations and notes that the point of the truth idiom is blind truth ascription. Quine denies that there is an interesting or useful bifurcation into very general sorts of points that apply to analytic sentences and very general sorts of points that apply to synthetic sentences. Quine rejects the idea that we can usefully approach meaning by beginning with the assumption that meanings are introspectible mental items. Back to contents

QUINE, INDETERMINACY OF TRANSLATION AND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

MADALINA NICOLOF

ABSTRACT. Quine presents the indeterminacy thesis and the inscrutability-of-reference thesis not as part of a greater reductio but as theses that he outright endorses. If we reflect carefully on the use of language, we will realize that it is not sufficiently rich as to guarantee anything like uniqueness of translation. Quine makes the observability of another's perception central to the feat of language learning. Back to contents

EXISTENCE AND CONSCIOUSNESS

OANA GHERMAN

ABSTRACT. Husserl claims the possibility of a universal neutrality modification affecting every positing act. Bolzano uses "existence" and "being" synonymously with "actuality", and accordingly says of non-actual objects that they do not exist, but that they merely are. Heidegger writes that Dasein can, in principle, become its authentic self. Dasein can become total because it is an entity which can take its past, present and future Being into a unified whole. Back to contents

MUSIC, PERFORMANCE AND EMOTION

LUMINITA POGACEANU

ABSTRACT. If the details of a performance are worked out according to historical practices, the character and emotional meaning of the piece will automatically come out. Mozart's understanding of the human voice is evident in his operatic style which is reflected in many of his keyboard works. Schönberg's music shunned totalizing structures and reification by avoiding musical formal cliches. Chopin never played his compositions the same way twice with regard to mood and interpretation. Back to contents

UNIVERSAL JURISDICTION AND INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL LAW

GEORGE HODOROGEA

ABSTRACT. Universal jurisdiction was designed to reduce impunity for most serious crimes that are of international concern. Members of the international community share common goals and fundamental values that shape an international ordre public. Amnesties and pardons in favor of persons who have committed international crimes are generally contrary to international law, especially when states have the duty to prosecute and punish a certain crime. Back to contents

RATIONAMENTUL JURIDIC SI ORDINEA SOCIALA

CARMEN PALACEAN

ABSTRACT. The critical legal studies movement views law as inherently an instrument of oppression that is used to legitimate the alienating behavior of the ruling class. Psycholegal research has contributed to false consciousness about the degree to which law reduces injustice and promotes social change. The most fundamental assumption in psychological jurisprudence is that law is intended to promote human welfare. Back to contents

SOCIETATEA CA REALITATE SUBIECTIVA

ADRIAN BLAJAN

ABSTRACT. Every individual starting a life should get a right to use equal amount of natural resources as everybody else. What an individual makes of these resources afterwards depends on his personal characteristics, whatever they are, and bears full responsibility for this. Left Libertarianism wants to exclude impact of received social position of an individual on his economic destiny and tries to secure success in life to the talented and industrious. Back to contents

RELATIVISMUL JURIDIC SI SPIRITUL LEGILOR

ION ZAULET

ABSTRACT. The nature of law itself precludes humane, individualized decisions: ideal law is based on the logical derivation and procedurally correct application of legal principles, devoid of subjectivity and emotion. The fact that people are less willing to trust poitical and legal authorities than in the past results in negative consequences. Procedural justice studies lack any way to evaluate the relationship between the subjective and the objective. Back to contents

DREPTATE, EGALITATE, LIBERTATE

GEORGE HODOROGEA

ABSTRACT. Rawls's general conception of justice holds that the basic structure of society should be arranged so as to maximize the long-run expectation of primary goods for the group of members of society that is worst off in this respect. The adherents of strict equality started a search for some complex measure of goods that would be given to everybody in equal amounts but would not suffer from similar bad effects. Back to contents

PRIVATIZATION AND BANK PERFORMANCE

DORIN DOBRISAN

ABSTRACT. An increasingly common outcome of large-scale bank privatization programs is foreign ownership of many nations' banking sector, which evidence suggests is usually positive in an economic sense, but problematic politically. There is little in the empirical record to suggest that privatization alone transforms the efficiency of divested banks, especially when these are only partially privatized. Back to contents

BANKS AND FINANCIAL MARKETS

LILIANA CIMBROLA

ABSTRACT. Banks in countries with stricter regulation have a lower charter value, which increases their incentives to follow risky policies. Larger banks appear to have the advantage in credit card lending, a market characterized by impersonal relationships and standardized loans. Real financial data tend to exhibit extreme price changes such as stock market crashes that seem incompatible with the assumption of normality. Back to contents

FINANCIAL CONSTRAINTS AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

CONSTANTIN LAPADAT

ABSTRACT. The technological production structure of the firms is reflected in the properties of the shares traded in the stock market. Agents are heterogeneous in their financial choices, potentially discriminating against the firms producing a negative externality. Capitalism is subject to a growth imperative, because uncertainty about the future makes it impossible to survive remaining in a stationary state. Volatility surprises to large capitalization firms are a reliable predictor of the volatility of smell capitalization firms. Back to contents

CRITICA MARXIANA A PRINCIPIILOR ECONOMIEI POLITICE LIBERALE

GABRIELA BOBORA

ABSTRACT. Marx argues that capitalism is distinctive in that it involves not merely the exchange of commodities, but the advancement of capital, in the form of money, with the purpose of generating profit through the purchase of commodities and their transformation into other commodities which can command a higher price, and thus yield a profit. In Marx's analysis labour power is the only commodity which can produce more value than it is worth, and for this reason it is known as variable capital. Back to contents

ARHITECTURA ECONOMICA MARXIANA

GEORGE DEVITT

ABSTRACT. Marx's economic analysis of capitalism is based on his version of the labour theory of value, and includes the analysis of capitalist profit as the extraction of surplus value from the exploited proletariat. The analysis of history and economics come together in Marx's prediction of the inevitable breakdown of capitalism for economic reasons, to be replaced by communism. Marx makes the prediction that the rate of profit will fall over time, and this is one of the factors which lead to the downfall of capitalism. Back to contents

MARKET STRUCTURE AND CAPITAL MARKET EQUILIBRIUM

DORIN DOBRISAN

ABSTRACT. Market share turbulence among top dealers is a form of competition that narrows bid-ask spreads, especially for stocks with less competitive market structure. Once the default-related variables are controlled for, bond betas or sensitivities to aggregate equity market risks have very limited explanatory power. The uncertainty induced by investors' learning about the fundamentals affects stock returns. Back to contents

MARX SI CAPITALISMUL

LILIANA CIMBROLA

ABSTRACT. Marx depicts the worker under capitalism as suffering from four types of alienated labour: i) from the product, which as soon as it is created is taken away from its producer; ii) in productive activity (work) which is experienced as a torment; iii) from species-being, for humans produce blindly and not in accordance with their truly human powers; iv) from other human beings, where the relation of exchange replaces mutual need. Revolution and epoch change is understood as the consequence of an economic structure no longer being able to continue to develop the forces of production. Back to contents

MARX ASUPRA MUNCII CA ALIENARE IN SOCIETATILE INDUSTRIALE MODERNE

CONSTANTIN LAPADAT

ABSTRACT. Marx notes that in real economic life prices vary in a systematic way from values. Marx's assertion that only labour can create surplus value is unsupported by any argument or analysis, and can be argued to be merely an artifact of the nature of his presentation. Although Marx's economic analysis is based on the discredited labour theory of value, there are elements of his theory that remain of worth. Back to contents

THE EFFECT OF GLOBALIZATION ON THE SKILL PREMIUM

GABRIELA BOBORA

ABSTRACT. Globalization offers a simple and immediate possible explanation for prominent stylized facts regarding the skill premium and the presence of skill-biased technical change. Exogenous capital inflow decreases labour supply and increases welfare only if the elasticity of substitution between leisure and the final good is equal to or less than unity. Very few economic phenomena attract more attention than bull and bear market cycles do. Back to contents

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Linguistic and Philosophical Investigations
VOLUME 5 • NUMBER 1 • MARCH 2006

HOW LONG BEFORE SUPERINTELLIGENCE?

NICK BOSTROM

ABSTRACT. This paper outlines the case for believing that we will have superhuman artificial intelligence within the first third of the next century. It looks at different estimates of the processing power of the human brain; how long it will take until computer hardware achieve a similar performance; ways of creating the software through bottom-up approaches like the one used by biological brains; how difficult it will be for neuroscience figure out enough about how brains work to make this approach work; and how fast we can expect superintelligence to be developed once there is human-level artificial intelligence. Back to contents

NO DANCING IN THE CHINESE ROOM: CHALMERS AND SEARLE

ROBERT G. BRICE

ABSTRACT. In this paper I argue that David Chalmers' argument against John Searle concerning the sorts of physical systems in which consciousness can emerge is a new version of an old objection-one that has already been convincingly responded to by Searle-namely, the "brain-simulator" objection. Moreover, I believe Chalmers' argument, although interesting, ultimately fails to address his question, namely "What sort of physical systems can give rise to conscious experience?" Back to contents

RELATII INTRE UNIVERSALII SAU LEGI DIVINE?

RICHARD SWINBURNE

ABSTRACT. An explanation in terms of the agency of God has the unique property of being such that if it is true, it cannot itself be explained further. There could not be a more ultimate cause of the existence of an everlasting omnipotent being; for if there is such a being any causes can operate only because he allows them to operate, and so the power of any other cause would depend on him. And if it is God who produces the fundamental regularities of nature, those regularities are indeed laws, divine laws. Back to contents

ADEVAR SI FICTIUNE IN CRITICA LUI DAVID LEWIS ASUPRA SEMANTICII MEINONGIENE

DALE JACQUETTE

ABSTRACT. I criticize all four of Lewis's objections to a Meinongian theory of fiction, suggesting that they can be answered or refuted, thereby blunting Lewis's charge that a Meinongian semantics is at a theoretical disadvantage in comparison with his modal story-contexting. Lewis-style modal story-contexting, moreover, is not incompatible with a Meinongian logic of fiction. By itself, without Meinongian object theory, Lewis's proposal moreover is subject to equally powerful countercriticisms. Some version of Lewis-style story-contexting needs to be combined with a Meinongian semantics of fiction in order to avoid Lewis's objections to Meinongian object theory, and to avoid Meinongian objections to Lewis's story-context-prefixing. Back to contents

DESPRE MORALITATE SI NATURA LEGII

JOSEPH RAZ

ABSTRACT. I argue that the denial of necessary connections between law and morality cannot be sustained, and I contend that many of the claims of specific necessary connections between law and morality made by legal theorists are mistaken. While these are necessary connections between morality and how the law is, the more significant necessary connections relate to the evaluative perspective which informs our thinking of how the law ought to be, rather than how it is. Back to contents

EXISTA INCA UN SENS IN CARE MATEMATICA POATE AVEA FUNDAMENTE? (I)

JODY AZZOUNI

ABSTRACT. An analysis of traditional mathematical proof is undertaken, with an implicit contrast to formal derivations. The semantic interpretation of mathematical terms plays a role in the former that doesn't appear in the latter. This semantic interpretation - with an accompanying role for intuition - is explained in terms of inference packages, which are psychologically-bundled ways of phenomenologically exploring the effect of several assumptions at once without explicit recognition of what those assumptions are. Although its correspondence with a derivation is the (ultimate) justification for the success of a traditional proof, the certainty that mathematicians experience when they study successful traditional proofs is not due to that correspondence, but rather - for the most part - to the role of inference packages in their reasoning. Back to contents

THE INDIVIDUALITY OF MEANING

JASPER DOOMEN

ABSTRACT. Descriptions have been the object of attention of many philosophers. The goal of this article is to inquire into the meaning of those descriptions which, due to the peculiar character of the objects of description, have been interpreted in different ways, and to investigate in which sense one is able to speak of the existence (or non-existence) of an object of description. Section 1 focuses on the various sorts of descriptions; the question arises which entities exist and which don't, and, in relation to this, how ‘meaning' is to be understood and what is meaningful and what isn't. In the second section, a number of limitations on descriptions are investigated. The third section offers a logical analysis of the basic argument presented. Back to contents

THE TRANSHUMANIST FAQ

NICK BOSTROM

ABSTRACT. Transhumanism is entering the mainstream culture today, as increasing numbers of scientists, scientifically literate philosophers, and social thinkers are beginning to take seriously the range of possibilities that transhumanism encompasses. The Transhumanist FAQ was conceived as an attempt to develop a broadly based consensus articulation of the basics of responsible transhumanism. The aim was a text that could serve both as a guide to those new to the field and as a reference work for more seasoned participants. Back to contents

MONTHERLANT, SARTRE, AND THE DECONSTRUCTION OF THE SUBJECT

CARMEN PETCU

ABSTRACT. According to Montherlant and Sartre, the character trait terms that we use to describe ourselves and other people should not be understood to designate properties that determine behaviour in given situations. A person's essence includes character traits incline that person towards certain types of behaviour but do not determine that behaviour. Montherlant realizes that, no matter how much one may experience, there is always something which escapes him, leaving his desires unsatisfied. Back to contents

MUSIC'S SELF-REFERENCING ARCHITECTURE

LUMINITA POGACEANU

ABSTRACT. Although causation may be an inappropriate concept to use in describing the influence that one musical event is perceived to have on another, the notion of implication is intuitively apposite. Viadana argues that confronted with the text of a piece of music, the performer will engage in a brief preliminary assessment, in order to get a rough sense of the piece's requirements. Either cases in which a work appears to be flexible are really cases in which there is more than one (inflexible) work. Back to contents

COLLINGWOOD'S HISTORICAL HERMENEUTICS

PAMFIL NICHITELEA

ABSTRACT. Collingwood views the world of natural science in terms of the search for generalizations and causal explanations, but take history to be concerned with particulars rather than universals. Collingwood attempted to integrate and understand human experience and knowledge, and to bring together history and philosophy in such a way that both would be preserved along with the culture they were meant to serve. Only limited generalizations, based upon the facts the historian has established my means of re-enactment, and circumstantially limited to distinct epochs, are attainable. Back to contents

WITTGENSTEIN: MEANING AND INTERPRETATION

GEORGE LAZAROIU

ABSTRACT. Wittgenstein moves away from depictions of our relation of the world as one of confinement, rejecting the idea that we must get over to the world from a purely subjective starting point. Wittgenstein observes that it makes no sense, with appropriate explanation, to speak of the component shapes as simples or parts or wholes. Wittgenstein observes that it makes no sense to speak of something as simple or complex absolutely. Back to contents

SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE METAPHYSICAL SUBJECT

AUREL PERA

ABSTRACT. Krishna remarks that man's consciousness itself will be seen as infected with a logical ambiguity rendering it ontologically unintelligible, if "reality" and "truth" are conceived in traditional terms. Kekes rejects the coherence model which posits the self as creating a coherent image of itself as part of its existential quest for integration. Pradhan claims that it is the capacity to become the first-person which makes someone a person; whatever Wittgenstein may have said about language his position does not lead to the conclusion that there is no self-consciousness. Back to contents

LOGIC AND TRUTH IN FREGE

SEVASTIAN BLENDEA

ABSTRACT. For Frege, facts are simply true thoughts, and their role in the service of a correspondence theory as grounders of truth is rejected. One cannot require that everything shall be defined, any more than one can require that a chemist shall decompose every substance. The question why and with what right we acknowledge a law of logic to be true, logic can answer only by reducing it to another law of logic. Back to contents

REPRESENTATION AND REALITY IN KANT

OANA GHERMAN

ABSTRACT. Kant's apperceptive relation of representations to the identity of the subject is the representationalist equivalent of the idea of the "unity of the proposition". Kant identifies the a priori as his primary concern in the Critiques, and seems in general unconcerned by skepticism about empirical knowledge. Kant's assertion that we cannot know things in themselves follows from his claim that we can know only the relational, and not the intrinsic properties of things. Back to contents

FOUCAULT, ARCHAEOLOGY OF KNOWLEDGE, AND AESTHETICS OF EXISTENCE

MADALINA NICOLOF

ABSTRACT. Foucault sketches three kinds of human relationships and links each to a prominent ethical school in the Greco-Roman world. Foucault is concerned with forging a new approach to historical analysis but not with the meta-question of how to understand and justify this approach philosophically. Foucault defines the conditions for the reality of statements in terms of the rules that govern their use. Back to contents

MUSICAL PRACTICE AND CREATIVITY

LUMINITA POGACEANU

ABSTRACT. Stravinsky sees himself as fully separated from the past, studying it not to continue it but to borrow from it piecemeal for his own purposes. A musical style is a body of musical products that share certain auditory features in common (Elliott). Schönberg views atonal composition as an inevitable development of western musical practices. Cage states that the special function of electrical instruments will be to provide "complete control of the overtone structure of tones and to make these tones available in any frequency, amplitude, and duration." Back to contents

THE PURSUIT OF MEANING AND LINGUISTIC PRACTICE

AUREL PERA

ABSTRACT. Frege notes that in the case of a concept we can call the unsaturatedness its predictive nature. Quine writes that we can simplify grammar and logic by minimizing the number of our grammatical categories and ma-ximizing their size. Davidson follows Quine in refusing to accept a distinction between statements that are true in virtue of their meaning and statements which are true in virtue of the world. Putnam believes that there are analytic truths, if by an analytic truth one means a statement which is reducible to something like principles of elementary logic via meaning relations. Back to contents

QUINE, MEANING, AND THE INDETERMINACY OF TRANSLATION

CATALIN VLASCEANU

ABSTRACT. Quine claims that sentential meaning is indeterminate (there is nothing determinate in the meaning of the original sentence for the translations to approximate to). Translation should match sentences with approximately identical stimulus meanings. Even if we adopt a fully realistic attitude towards our theories in physics, linguistic theory is still undetermined. Once it is carefully distinguished from the theory of reference, the theory of meaning proves itself as being concerned with notions like analyticity and synonymy. Back to contents

DOSSO DOSSI'S JUPITER, MERCURY, AND VIRTUE - A SAMPLE OF GENRE ANALYSIS (II)

ANDA-ELENA CRETIU

ABSTRACT. Compositional canons tend to place the most important thing/ character in the focal point and, probably, the center of a painting would be such a position. A basic device the discourse about art deals with is the formal analysis, viewed both as a genre with its own purposes and structure, and as a discoursal strategy serving to achieving other genre's goals. Back to contents

FOUCAULT ON FREEDOM, POWER AND RESISTANCE TO NORMALIZING OPPRESSION

CARMEN PALACEAN

ABSTRACT. Foucault objects to the reduction of power to "the force of the negative", as evidenced in the figure of the king, in explicit displays of force and violence, and in the prohibitive structure of laws and taboos. Foucault does not believe a subject of morality exists prior to the practices are what create moral subjectivity. The social world is not power-neutral but is a dynamic power/ knowledge network; power relations must repeat in order to maintain themselves. Back to contents

LEGALLY BINDING AND EXTRA-LEGAL REFERENCES TO MORALITY

ELENA-MARIA TUDOR

ABSTRACT. Soper derives moral requirements on legal validity from a theory of the nature of law. Dworhin holds if we look closely at courts' reasoning, we will often find them relying on moral judgment; the law is nothing more or less than any valid reason for a court's decision (morality is part of the law). Within ethics, Kant draws a motivational distinction between "morality" and mere "legality", the latter of which can be easily confused with the "legality" and laws discussed in political philosophy. Back to contents

DEMOCRACY, FORCE OF LAW, AND WELL-BEING

EUGEN NEATA

ABSTRACT. Broome compares the values of distribution of well-being for different groups of the same size and then groups of different sizes. Lafort's thinking about modern democracy is not a rehearsal of abstract ideas but rather an attempt to evoke an experience of democracy (Flynn). In applying Rawls' principles of justice there are two relevant social positions, that of equal citizen and that determined by one's place "in the distribution of wealth". Back to contents

THE ROLE OF COHERENCE IN LEGAL REASONING

GRATIELA MARCU

ABSTRACT. A complete legal theory does not merely identify the rules of a legal system, but also interprets and evaluates them. Hart distinguishes the "external" from the "internal" points of view with regard to how the rules of a legal system may be described or evaluated. Dworkin asserts that the law is coherent to the extent that it is coherent to an ideal judge with perfect knowledge of the legal system. Legal analysis should become a conversation between legal technicians and the larger civic body. Back to contents

KANT, MORALITY, AND AUTONOMY

SEVASTIAN BLENDEA

ABSTRACT. The driving force is the moral feeling and it is rooted in reason (it logically depends on the recognition and acceptance of moral requirements). Moral requirements represent actions that realize moral ends the value of which does not depend on whether a specific individual appreciates and desires it. Our ordinary conception of responsibility has it that responsibility can ground eternal heaven-and-hell rewards and punishments. Back to contents

DWORKIN'S THEORY OF LAW AS INTEGRITY: LEGAL UNDERSTANDING AS AN INTERPRETIVE ACTIVITY

EUGEN NEATA

ABSTRACT. Dworkin argues that political and legal concepts have a deep structure that determines what these terms really mean. Dworkin identifies legal understanding with judicial methods of rational reconstruction, explaining the internal experience of judging and revealing the ideals that lie behind judicial practice. There is an inevitable evaluation or normative dimension to statements about what the law is, because the very problem is a normative one. Back to contents

UNIVERSAL NORMS, MORAL MINIMALISM, AND SOCIAL ORDER

RADU PETCU

ABSTRACT. Hetcher writes that norms are best conceived as patterns of behaviour instantiated in a group, and distinguishes between three kinds of norms: sanction-driven, coordination, and epistemic norms. Raz maps the structure of agents' practical reason thinking of norms as one of the elements of an agent's practical reason that guides the agent's behaviour. May holds that individuals' pursuit of survival both justifies the sovereignty of a state as protector, and permits resistance to sovereignty when it fails or attacks the pursuit. Back to contents

CAPITALISM AND FINANCIAL GLOBALIZATION

GEORGE HODOROGEA

ABSTRACT. Thirkell-White depicts an international organization created, defined and experiencing its formative years in an era quite different from the current; it is struggling to make sense of its formal mandate in the context of an increasingly politicized and diverse development agenda, brought about by normative and material shifts in its institutional environment. Hayek notes that the free market does not recognize merit or desert in any objective sense, but simply the value others place on one's capacities or services. Back to contents

THE GLOBALIZATION OF CULTURE, INTERNATIONAL MARKETING, AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF A WORLD SOCIETY

CARMEN PETCU

ABSTRACT. Held remarks that it is easy to mistake an account of the globalization of communications with an account of the globalization of culture. According to Tomlinson, the idea of deterritorialization grasps the way in which events outside of our immediate localities are increasingly consequential for our experience. Buzan thinks it would be a mistake to assume that the whole world has reformed itself in the same way that the most advanced parts of the world have; the world is really divided into two or three spheres in which the rules of the game are quite different because the level of globalization is very differently distributed. Back to contents

AN ANALYSIS OF MONETARY POLICY RULES

LILIANA CIMBROLA

ABSTRACT. Raising interest rates modestly as asset prices rise above what are estimated to be warranted levels can reduce the effects of asset-price bubbles on output and inflation, thereby enhancing macroeconomic stability. A bank's asset portofolio consisting of loans to nonbanks, interbank loans, traded securities, and many other items is funded by debt and equity. From the perspective of systemic stability, the assumption of idiosyncratic shocks might lead to an underestimation of systemic risk. Back to contents

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Linguistic and Philosophical Investigations
VOLUME 5 • NUMBER 2 • 2006

SIMPLITATEA CA DOVADA A ADEVARULUI

RICHARD SWINBURNE

ABSTRACT. I seek in this essay to show that - other things being equal - the simplest hypothesis proposed as an explanation of phenomena is more likely to be the true one than is any other available hypothesis, that its predictions are more likely to be true than are those of any other available hypothesis, and that it is an ultimate a priori epistemic principle that simplicity is evidence of truth. Back to contents

WHAT IS A SINGLETON?

NICK BOSTROM

ABSTRACT. This paper introduces the concept of a "singleton" and suggests that this concept is useful for formulating and analyzing possible scenarios for the future of humanity. Singletons could be good, bad, or neutral. One reason for favoring the development of a singleton (of a good type) is that it would solve certain fundamental coordination problems that may be unsolvable in a world that contains a large number of independent agencies at the top level. Back to contents

INCORPORAREA DE CATRE LEGE

JOSEPH RAZ

ABSTRACT. The incorporation thesis claims that moral standards turn into law simply because of their incorporation. It seems to lack the resources to distinguish between law directing us and the courts to follow some foreign law, or to obey the rules of some associations, etc., and the incorporation of morality. In fact it has a special difficulty with the latter, for morality applies anyway, and the incorporation thesis suggests that it applies only if incorporated. I show that so-called incorporating laws have their point, that their effect is not to incorporate but rather to prevent the exclusion of morality by law. Back to contents

CUM SA ANALIZEZI PROBLEMA LIBERULUI ARBITRU: ROLURILE ANALIZEI CONCEPTUALE SI ALE STIINTELOR EMPIRICE

MARIO DE CARO

ABSTRACT. One of the main difficulties of the free will issue is to understand what contributions are supposed to come, respectively, from philosophy intended as a practice that essentially involves conceptual analysis) and from empirical investigation. In principle, three options are open when one reflects on what roles these two fields can play in the free will discussion: scientific isolationist view, interactionist view, and philosophical isolationist view. In this paper it will be argued that the second view is correct, while the first is obviously wrong and the third is more subtly wrong. Back to contents

ANTIREDUCTIONISMUL LUI SEARLE

DALE JACQUETTE

ABSTRACT. Ontological reduction is by no means trivial, but a significant project in contemporary philosophy of mind. If reductionism is to succeed, it must meet a substantive burden of proof to show that psychological phenomena are reducible in the sense of being nothing but or fully satisfactorily explainable in terms of purely nonmental, nonpsychological, and nonintentional phenomena. If reductionism is to be defeated in the name of ontic subjectivity and the metaphysical dignity of mind, then reductionism must be met head-on by its opponents as a meaningful if finally unsound attempt to explain away qualia and the intentionality of thought. Back to contents

EXISTA INCA UN SENS IN CARE MATEMATICA POATE AVEA FUNDAMENTE? (II)

JODY AZZOUNI

ABSTRACT. An analysis of traditional mathematical proof is undertaken, with an implicit contrast to formal derivations. The semantic interpretation of mathematical terms plays a role in the former that doesn't appear in the latter. This semantic interpretation, with an accompanying role for intuition, is explained in terms of inference packages, which are psychologically-bundled ways of phenomenologically exploring the effect of several assumptions at once without explicit recognition of what those assumptions are. Although its correspondence with a derivation is the (ultimate) justification for the success of a traditional proof, the certainty that mathematicians experience when they study successful traditional proofs is not due to that correspondence, but rather, for the most part, to the role of inference packages in their reasoning. Back to contents

BAUDRILLARD AND THE HYPER-REALITY OF SIMULATION

CARMEN PETCU

ABSTRACT. Baudrillard states that the violence of globalization involves architecture (the violence protest against it involves the destruction of that architecture). According to Baudrillard, what science senses now is a possible reversibility of physical laws, not some ultra-formula or meta-equation of the universe. Baudrillard holds that the photographic act is a form of objective meditation. Baudrillard declares the end of labor, of production, of political economy. Back to contents

MCDOWELL ON MIND, WORLD, AND REALITY

OANA GHERMAN

ABSTRACT. McDowell contends that in experience one finds oneself saddled with content. One's epistemic standing on some question cannot intelligibly be constituted by matters blankly external to how it is with one subjectively. Silverberg argues that McDowell is not a substance dualist who claims that the realm of reason belongs to a non-physical part of reality; understanding things as belonging to the realm of reason, in terms of their possibility of being reasons, requires understanding them as having meaning. Back to contents

DAVIDSON'S COHERENTISM

ADRIAN CONSTANTINESCU

ABSTRACT. Davidson claims that nothing can count as a reason for holding a belief except another belief. Gluer argues that Davidson shifts the focus of attention from the concept of a language to that of communication by language. Davidson suggests that the existence of lawlike statements in physical science depends upon the existence of constitutive laws like those of the measurement of length within the same conceptual domain. Davidson writes that the relevant stimuli are the objects or events we naturally find similar which are correlated with responses from the child we find similar. Back to contents

WHITEHEAD, QUANTUM MECHANICS, AND PROCESS PHYSICS

CAMELIA-SIMONA DRAGAN

ABSTRACT. Stapp contends that a core issue for both Whiteheadian process and quantum process is the emergence of the discrete from the continuous. The Whiteheadian approach, according to Malin, is uniquely appropriate as a metaphysical system that can encompass the findings of quantum physics. The continuity of nature is due to events, and the atomicity in nature is due to objects; the continuity of nature is due to extension, while the atomicity is due to the relation between atomic objects and events (Haeften). Back to contents

DUMMETT AND THE PARADOXICAL CHARACTER OF LANGUAGE

MADALINA NICOLOF

ABSTRACT. Dummett contends that he wants to arrive at a model of the proper form of a theory of meaning in which our understanding of our language consists. Dummett asserts that the whole difficulty arises from the principle that the reference of an expression must be determined from its sense alone. Dummett remarks that according to a holistic view of language, it is illegitimate to ask after the content of any single statement. Back to contents

DOSSO DOSSI'S JUPITER, MERCURY, AND VIRTUE - A SAMPLE OF GENRE ANALYSIS (OF A TEXT BY ANDREE HAYUM) (III)

ANDA-ELENA CRETIU

ABSTRACT. Compositional canons tend to place the most important thing/ character in the focal point and, probably, the center of a painting would be such a position. A basic device the discourse about art deals with is the formal analysis, viewed both as a genre with its own purposes and structure, and as a discoursal strategy serving to achieving other genre's goals. Back to contents

GAME THEORY AND COGNITIVE PROCESSES

AUREL PERA

ABSTRACT. According to MacKenzie and Wicker, game theory is a set of tools developed to model interactions between agents with conflicting interests. Mahajan et al. apply techniques from game theory to help formulate and analyze solutions to two systems problems: discouraging selfishness in multi-hop wireless networks and enabling cooperation among ISPs in the Internet. Freund and Schapire study the close connection between game theory, on-line prediction and boosting, and describe an algorithm for learning to play repeated games based on the on-line prediction methods of Littlestone and Warmuth. Back to contents

BAUDRILLARD ON ILLUSION AND REALITY

CARMEN PETCU

ABSTRACT. Baudrillard maintains that simulation is no longer that of a territory, a referential being or a substance. Baudrillard writes that the hypothesis of objective reality exerts such a hold on our minds only because it is by far the easiest solution. Baudrillard says that we are all gamblers and that what we desire most intensely is that the inexorable procession of rational connection cease for a while. Baudrillard holds that we are going to end up looking for imagination in places further and further from power. Back to contents

WINDOW ON ROMANIAN FOLK MUSIC (I)

VIORICA BARBU-IURASCU

ABSTRACT. Zlateva contends that the free rhythm of the doinas (parlando) and their movement (rubato), correspond somewhat to singing according to the taste of the performer who, in singing, lengthens or shortens the notes, speeding or slowing down the performance according to individual artistic mastery. Giurchescu reasons that Calus is a protection, healing, and fertility ritual, carried out at the Orthodox Pentecost Rusalii, seven weeks after the Orthodox Easter. Beissinger claims that Romanian oral epic includes a large body of heroic songs, fantastic and mythological songs, haiduc songs, and balladic narrative songs of a more lyric nature. Back to contents

THE ACTUAL COURSE OF MOZART'S DISCOVERIES

LUMINITA POGACEANU

ABSTRACT. In Mozart's Fantasy in C minor, K. 475, Sigerson notes, the Lydian interval represents the minimum action required to move into the domain of multiply-connected, polyphonic vocal registration. Pechenuk argues that Mozart concentrated in his Ave verum all the momentous discoveries he had made over the preceding decade. Libin says that Mozart, the "consummate improviser", probably did not limit his improvisatory impulse to a few discrete closing areas, or to the addition of ornamentation here and there. Back to contents

THE ROMANIAN CALUS CUSTOM

VIORICA BARBU-IURASCU

ABSTRACT. Mellish claims that the Transylvanian Calusari is only found in its old form in the Banat mountains and Hunedoara county (it is performed between Christmas and the New Year, and is known by the name Calutul or Calusarul). Giurchescu writes that the calusari wear a special costume consisting of a white embroidered shirt, white trousers tucked into knee-high, richly embroidered socks, bells tied under the knees, and opinci with metal spurs called pinteni. Calus is deeply rooted in Romania's ancient cultural strata. Back to contents

MEDIA HISTORY AND TEXTUAL ANALYSIS

GEORGE LAZAROIU

ABSTRACT. Meadows views journalism as part of the broader process of making culture: journalism practices should be seen as anything but self-justifying (they must be contingent on the social consequences they provoke in the formation of democracy). Randall claims that the distinguishing feature of investigative reporting is original research. Schudson argues that the mass media have as yet to prove that they are capable of meeting the demards of the new kind of citizen (the "monitorial" citizen). Back to contents

MEDIATING COMMUNICATION AND UNDERSTANDING GLOBAL JOURNALISM

GEORGE LAZAROIU

ABSTRACT. Hobart argues that it is forms of popular culture and mass media which occupy most peoples' time and attention in many parts of the world. Kelly writes that the media is far more interested in tactics than covering policy because it's easier for journalists. Ettema and Glaser hold that investigative journalists are not the guardians of some superior moral knowledge. Lloyd claims that the problems of journalism are, at base, philosophical problems. Back to contents

MANUFACTURING THE NEWS, ELECTRONIC JOURNALISM, AND MEDIA DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

GEORGE LAZAROIU

ABSTRACT. The field of journalism is much more dependent on the external forces than any other field of cultural production (Bourdieu). The new electronic cultural spaces are created by and serve global cultural corporations (Morley and Robins). Television is an instrument of simplicity in a world of complexity (Gergen). Feedback in the converged world of digital communication is instantaneous in comparison with traditional analog mass communication (Pavlik and McIntosh). Back to contents

RETHINKING THE IDEA OF REVOLUTION IN HISTORY

STEFAN PAUN

ABSTRACT. Danto contends that a great many, if not all the laws which are elements of explanations in history cover classes of instances which are both open and non-homogeneous. Kroeber states that in the history of continuity and change, revolutionary episodes have an important niche: historians and social scientists have contributed strongly by chronicling and comparing revolutionary situations. Engels claims that history is made in such a way that the final result always arises from conflicts between many individual wills, of which each in turn has been made what it is by a host of particular conditions of life. Back to contents

THE CURRENT STATE OF MONETARY, BANKING, AND FINANCIAL MARKETS IN ASIA

DORIN DOBRISAN

ABSTRACT. Ito asserts that the actions and decisions of the Bank of Japan have become a focus of policy debate in Japan. Goodfriend and Prasad say that China's rising prominence in the world economy has meant that the efficacy of its macroeconomic management has taken on considerable importance. Mariano and Villanueva write that inflation forecast targeting requires a good econometric model. Gerlach and Gerlach-Kristen compare the parameter estimates for the economies of Hong Kong and Singapore. Bhattacharya contends that the Indian experience could be of help in expanding our knowledge on two problems. Back to contents

ACCOUNTING STANDARDS AND FINANCIAL DISCLOSURE REGULATION

LUMINITA IONESCU

ABSTRACT. Das argues for reforms in India's public accounting practice: in re- cent years there has been a growing demand that the government should be fully accountable for the resources entrusted to its care. Ding et al. assert that although accounting standards are important determinants of financial reporting quality, they differ across countries. Salvary claims that to some accountants a capital-market-oriented value, not a transaction-based value, is the appropriate approach to measure a firm's assets and liabilities in financial accounting. Back to contents

PARAMETERS OF MONETARY POLICY IN ASIA

DORIN DOBRISAN

ABSTRACT. According to Fujiwara et al., reflecting recent economic developments in Japan, interest in how monetary policy should be conducted under low inflation. McCauley remarks that the central banks of Malaysia and Thailand have two main monetary policy goals: low inflation and stable exchange rates. Camen reasons that countries can only pursue two of the following three options: fixed exchange rates, domestic monetary autonomy and capital mobility. Back to contents

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Linguistic and Philosophical Investigations
VOLUME 6 • 2007

WITTGENSTEIN, EDUCATION AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MATHEMATICS

MICHAEL A. PETERS

ABSTRACT. The "new Wittgenstein" coalesces around a series of common interpretive protocols: Wittgenstein is not advancing theories in metaphysics but employing a therapeutic method; he is helping us to work free of the confusions that become evident when we begin to philosophize; at the same time, Wittgenstein is disabusing us of the notion that we can stand outside language and command an external view, and; that such an external view is both necessary and possible for grasping the essence of thought and language. Back to contents

IS MATHEMATICS DISCOVERED OR INVENTED?

PAUL ERNEST

ABSTRACT. The controversy between those who think mathematics is discovered and those who think it is invented may run and run, like many perennial problems of philosophy. Controversies such as those between idealists and realists, and between dogmatists and skeptics, have already lasted more than two and a half thousand years. I do not expect to be able to convert those committed to the discovery view of mathematics to the inventionist view. However what I have shown is that a better case can be put for mathematics being invented than our critics sometimes allow. Back to contents

REVISITING THE "UNREASONABLE EFFECTIVENESS" OF MATHEMATICS

SUNDAR SARUKKAI

ABSTRACT. Although the phrase "unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics" is widely used, it is not clear what it means. I consider the different views on the nature of mathematics, the diversity of which points to the difficulty in understanding what mathematics really is, a difficulty which adds to the mysteriousness of the applicability of mathematics. It is also not clear as to what is applied when we apply mathematics. What is clear however is that mathematics cannot be applied to the world but only to some descriptions of the world. This description occurs through the medium of language and models, thus leading us to consider the role of mathematics as language. The concluding parts of this paper argue how the view of mathematics as language can help us understand the mechanisms for its effective applicability. Back to contents

THE EPISTEMOLOGICAL MYSTIQUE OF SELF-LOCATING BELIEF

NICK BOSTROM

ABSTRACT. What can you infer from observations about your own location in the world? How should you distribute your credence when you are uncertain about which location is yours? This paper uses a series of thought experiment to explore three alternative models for how to reason about when self-locating belief is involved. Each of these models yields unexpected paradoxical results. Back to contents

WITTGENSTEIN ON PRIVACY

MATTHEW J. DENSLEY

ABSTRACT. Wittgenstein does not deny private objects; he denies them a role in our language. They are not a something, but not a nothing either. The role they play in language could be just as well done by a nothing as a something. Nor are the things we talk about connected in a contingent manner with language, such that beyond the limits of language there are things that cannot be expressed in our language. There is not, as the conceptual realist would have it, "something" beyond the limits of language. Both the words "nothing" and "something" belong to language, and beyond its limits, we can say nothing. Back to contents

LA TEORIA MANIPOLATIVA DELLA CAUSALITÀ E IL PROBLEMA DELLA RETROCAUSAZIONE

ELISA PAGANINI

ABSTRACT. I show that the assumption of a power or force which connects cause and effect is an essential characteristic of our concept of cause. I present the criteria of the Agency Theory of Causality which I appreciate as correct. I show why this theory assumes the idea of force connecting cause and effect, and I propose that the idea originates in the experience of "being compelled or induced" to undertake an action. I analyse an argument in favour of the opinion of Backwards Causation presented by Michael Dummett. I also investigate the apparent implausibility of backwards causation. I believe that the reason it is regarded as implausible has to do with the experience that localize force as the factor that links cause and effect. Back to contents

INCEPUTUL UNIVERSULUI SI AL TIMPULUI

RICHARD SWINBURNE

ABSTRACT. I argue for four modestly verificationist theses about certain concepts crucial in this area, such as "period" and "instant", and that in consequence of these theses the only coherent account which can be given of the Universe having/not having a beginning is in terms of its existence being preceded by/not preceded by a period of empty time. It follows that it is not logically possible for time to have a beginning, and that physical cosmology could never show us that the Universe had no beginning, but it could show us that the Universe did have a beginning. Back to contents

MANOMETRUL LUI WITTGENSTEIN SI ARGUMENTUL LIMBAJULUI PRIVAT

DALE JACQUETTE

ABSTRACT. The manometer example in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations § 270 is notoriously difficult to interpret; ironically, in one sense, because it is supposed to clarify by concrete analogy Wittgenstein's abstract remarks about the impossibility of private language. There is no standard interpretation of the manometer passage, partly because Wittgenstein's remarks have been found so difficult to explain that they are often ignored. Where interpretations are ventured, they disagree pointedly and can be seen either to conflict with or fall short of adequately explaining the manometer. Back to contents

EXISTA INCA UN SENS IN CARE MATEMATICA POATE AVEA FUNDAMENTE? (III)

JODY AZZOUNI

ABSTRACT. An analysis of traditional mathematical proof is undertaken, with an implicit contrast to formal derivations. The semantic interpretation of mathematical terms plays a role in the former that doesn't appear in the latter. This semantic interpretation, with an accompanying role for intuition, is explained in terms of inference packages, which are psychologically-bundled ways of phenomenologically exploring the effect of several assumptions at once without explicit recognition of what those assumptions are. Although its correspondence with a derivation is the (ultimate) justification for the success of a traditional proof, the certainty that mathematicians experience when they study successful traditional proofs is not due to that correspondence, but rather, for the most part, to the role of inference packages in their reasoning. Back to contents

THE META-NEWCOMB PROBLEM

NICK BOSTROM

ABSTRACT. I consider a twist of the Newcomb problem. There are two boxes in front of you and you are asked to choose between taking only box B or taking both box A and box B. Box A contains $ 1,000. Box B will contain either nothing or $ 1,000,000. What B will contain is (or will be) determined by Predictor, who has an excellent track record of predicting your choices. Back to contents

DIFFERENCE AND CONSCIOUSNESS

CARMEN PETCU

ABSTRACT. Sartre contends that if the intention is not a thing in consciousness, then the being of the intention can be only consciousness. Deleuze and Guattari note that the two forms of content and expression are in reciprocal presupposition, and they can be abstracted from each other only in a very relative way because they are two sides of a single assemblage. Lyotard claims that the rules of formation and linkage that determine the regimen of a phrase have to be distinguished from the modes of linking that stem from genres of discourse. Bachelard holds that sooner or later scientific thought will become the fundamental theme of philosophical polemics. Back to contents

DENNETT'S PROJECT OF HETEROPHENOMENOLOGY

OANA GHERMAN

ABSTRACT. Dennett points out that nobody denies that when we engage in mental imagery we seem to be making pictures in our head, and that one can't have infallibility about one's own consciousness, but that one can get close. Dennett distinguishes between the "scientific approach" to mental images and the "phenomenological approach" ("heterophenomenology") to mental images. Drummond notes that heterophenomenology is the beginning part of the science of consciousness, a way of collecting and organizing the data that must be explained. Back to contents

MEANING AND THE USES OF SENSE

ADRIAN CONSTANTINESCU

ABSTRACT. Putnam writes that the claim that all natural languages are inconsistent, because they are "semantically closed", is false in part because only theories (systems of assertions) are inconsistent, and natural languages, e.g. English, are not theories. Russell states that in any proposition which contains no real variables, we may imagine one of the terms, not a verb or an adjective, to be replaced by other terms. Biro contends that the speaker's meaning is fundamental, and that his intentions are fundamental in explaining that. According to Raman, the place of a word in grammar as well as its use in language, Wittgenstein avers, is its meaning. Back to contents

REPRESENTATIONS IN QUANTUM MECHANICS

CAMELIA-SIMONA DRAGAN

ABSTRACT. Barrett writes that quantum mechanics and special relativity are the two cornerstones of modern physics. Balaguer contends that propensities are just physical properties, like temperatures and lengths, and so we can get rid of them. Lewis argues that on a realist construal of quantum mechanics, the quantum state determines the truth-values of claims about macroscopic objects. Arntzenius holds that in quantum particle mechanics there are additional reasons to reject states that correspond to point values for continuous observables, including positions. Back to contents

ETHICAL PRINCIPLES IN THE CREATION OF ARTIFICIAL MINDS

NICK BOSTROM

ABSTRACT. Substrate is morally irrelevant. We differentiate morally between actual and potential beings: the latter do not exist now and will never exist unless we bring them into existence. It is generally unethical to create a person whose life is expected to be not worth living. A being's moral status is not affected by how it came into existence. Creators of new beings have a pro tanto moral reason to select to create, of the possible beings they could create, the one that is expected to have the life most worth living. Procreators have a moral responsibility to make fair provisions for their progeny. To the extent that procreators have control over what sort of being they create, they are responsible for that being's actions. Back to contents

MEANING AND CONVENTIONS OF LANGUAGE

MADALINA NICOLOF

ABSTRACT. Kripke notes that such semantical notions as "grounded", "paradoxical", etc. belong to the metalanguage. Quine remarks that it is obvious that truth in general depends on both language and extralinguistic fact. Russell asserts that in an elementary proposition we can distinguish one or more terms from one or more concepts. Davidson says that we have the idea of belief only from the role of belief in the interpretation of language, for as a private attitude it is not intelligible except as an adjustment to the public norm provided by language. Back to contents

HEURISTICS AND BIASES IN PSYCHOLOGY

AUREL PERA

ABSTRACT. Gilovich and Griffin note that the heuristics and biases message fit well with the pragmatic agenda of much of the field of social psychology. According to Kahneman and Tversky, there are several reasons for studying judgmental or perceptual biases: they are of interest in their own right; they can have practical implications (e.g., to clinical judgment or intuitive forecasting); the study of systematic error can illuminate the psychological processes that underlie perception and judgment. Kanheman and Frederick state that, from its earliest days, the heuristics and biases program was guided by the idea that intuitive judgments occupy a position between the automatic parallel operations of perception and the controlled serial operations of reasoning. Back to contents

SUBJECTIVITY AND MULTIPLICITY IN DELEUZE'S TRANSCENDENTAL EMPIRICISM

CARMEN PETCU

ABSTRACT. Semetsky remarks that, for Deleuze, the states of things are what he called qualitative multiplicities, or relational entities, the analysis of which as a task of philosophy ultimately leads to the invention or construction of concepts anew. Jobst states that Deleuze's philosophy was intended to come into being as a result of relational thinking (one always on the look-out for material derived from non-philosophical realms and practices). According to Deleuze, from the viewpoint of immanence the distinction of essence implies an equality of being. Bryant asserts that Deleuze offers us a metaphysics of transcendental empiricism that would deliver us a concept of difference rather than restricting difference to conceptual difference. Back to contents

WINDOW ON ROMANIAN FOLK MUSIC (II)

VIORICA BARBU-IURASCU

ABSTRACT. Zlateva notes that many of the spiritual creations of the Romanian people are inspired by pastoral life (a number of ballads, songs and dances commemorate shepherds and shepherding). Kraft writes that the immediate appeal of village dancing must have had much to do with its being an intensely social experience; inasmuch as Transylvanian village traditions usually have a large inventory of dance figures, much depends on how those figures are put to use. Beissinger remarks that weddings represent the most commemorated ritual event of the life cycle in Romanian society; music, performed by lautari, plays a central role at weddings. Back to contents

COGNITIVE FOUNDATIONS OF MUSICAL MEANING

LUMINITA POGACEANU

ABSTRACT. Tarasti claims that to write a fugue means the principle of Soi in composition (a strictly coded musical technique). According to Mann, in Wagner's language the orchestral comment became the primary agent in conveying dramatic situations and philosophical concepts. Adorno notes that music resembles language in the sense that it is a temporal sequence of articulated sounds which are more than just sounds. Friberg and Battel maintain that variations in timing and dynamics play an essential role in music performance. Drott holds that Ligeti's latest compositions make frequent use of triadic sonorities, albeit placed in unfamiliar contexts. Back to contents

EMOTIONAL RESPONSE, HARMONIC PROCESSES, AND MUSICAL STYLE

VIORICA BARBU-IURASCU

ABSTRACT. Liszt's mastery of the Romantic orchestra was entirely beholden to symphonic principles of elaboration (Mann). Palmer highlights the perceptual consequences of music performance, including the successful communication of interpretations, resolution of structural ambiguities, and concordance with listeners' expectations. Friberg and Battel argue that a musical phrase tends to speed up and get louder at the start, and to slow down and get quieter at the end. Leopold Mozart states that for the liveliness of music, dotted notes must be held somewhat longer, but the time extended value must be taken from the note standing after the dot. Back to contents

THE TECHNOLOGY OF MASS COMMUNICATION AND THE PRACTICE OF JOURNALISM

GEORGE LAZAROIU

ABSTRACT. Knight notes that journalists inhabit a culture of ideas which shape the way they report, select, edit and prioritise news. Meyer maintains that precision journalism employs social science survey methods to gather statistics which could be used as the basis of news stories. Hastings remarks that, in the past, only news "flashes" had been transmitted by wire. Meyer writes that the new precision journalism is scientific journalism. Bourdieu contends that journalists owe their importance in society to their de facto monopoly on large-scale informational instruments of production and diffusion of information. Back to contents

RECONFIGURING JOURNALISM IN THE EPOCH OF THE MULTI-MEDIA WORLD

GEORGE LAZAROIU

ABSTRACT. Manovich writes that the numerical coding of media and the modular structure of a media object allow for the automation of many operations involved in media creation, manipulation, and access. Gans claims that it is proper to ask who should be responsible for story selection and production. Platon and Deuze contend that nothing in public journalism removes power from the journalists or the corporations they work for. Back to contents

MULTIPERSPECTIVAL MIXED NEWS MATTERS

GEORGE LAZAROIU

ABSTRACT. Alleyne holds that news media have derived power from their ability to determine the definition of news. Meikle writes that news coverage becomes "conversational", developing a form of ever-unfinished media. Hartley says that television provides a mechanism for communicating across class, gender, ethnic, national, and other boundaries. Gans says that ideally the news should be omniperspectival. Turner's study responds to what is regarded as a widespread critique of the phenomenon of tabloidization in television news and current affairs. Back to contents

MONETARY POLICY, EXCHANGE RATE, AND REAL STABILIZATION

DORIN DOBRISAN

ABSTRACT. Bils et al. state that models with sticky prices predict that monetary policy changes will affect relative prices and relative quantities in the short run because some prices are more flexible than others. Svensson claims that monetary policy actions in industrialized countries normally affect real activity and inflation with considerable lags. Goodfriend locates the transmission of interest rate policy to employment and inflation in its leverage over the markup, and traces the effects on employment and inflation of three types of disturbances: optimism or pessimism about future income prospects, a temporary productivity shock, and a shift in trend productivity growth. Back to contents

MEASURING MONETARY POLICY SHOCKS

ELENA-MARIA TUDOR

ABSTRACT. Fielding and Shields remark that an increase in the share of wholesale and retail firms in total employment is associated with greater sensitivity to monetary policy shocks. Using a structural VAR approach, Sousa and Zaghini find that after a monetary policy shock output declines temporarily, with the downward effect reaching a peak within the second year, and the global monetary aggregate drops significantly. When a set of consumption goods is nontraded and the consumption basket is distinct across countries, Duarte shows that the model is consistent with the observed relative price differentials across countries under a fixed exchange rate regime. Back to contents

EMPIRICAL RESEARCH IN ACCOUNTING CHOICE

LUMINITA IONESCU

ABSTRACT. Herrmann et al. examine the effect of changes in Japanese consolidation policy on financial analysts' perceptions of the persistence of subsidiary earnings. Lehman and Okcabol demonstrate how accounting is implicated in national immigration issues, and illustrate how accounting numbers are used to construct economic arguments for and against immigration. Liang and Wen show that an output-based measure has a natural advantage in aligning firm investment incentives. Back to contents

COPYRIGHT, THE MUSIC BUSINESS, AND THE RISE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

GEORGE HODOROGEA

ABSTRACT. Mazumder notes that copyright law is concerned with the negative right of preventing the copying of physical material. Hesmondhalgh examines the implications of digitalization for musical production, distribution and consumption, as a particular and distinct case of the dynamics of digitalization in the cultural industries. Halonen-Akatwijuka and Regner study the innovation process of music goods from an organizational point of view. Hart and Moore analyze the optimal ownership structure with a fixed number of agents; the degree of indispensability of the agents is one of the important determinants of the optimal ownership structure. Back to contents

THE MONETARY TRANSMISSION MECHANISM AND IDENTIFYING THE EFFECTS OF MONETARY POLICY SHOCKS

DORIN DOBRISAN

ABSTRACT. Bhuiyan proposes to incorporate a forward-looking dimension into the monetary policy rule, by adding inflationary expectations as a contemporaneous input, to identify the policy shoch in the structural VAR model. Duarte claims that when prices are preset in the currency of the buyer, unanticipated movements in the nominal exchange rate do not affect the price of imported goods on impact. Lanne and Luetkepohl argue that in a structural vector auto- regressive setting there has been some controversy about which restrictions to use for identifying the shocks because standard theories do not provide enough information to fully identify monetary policy shocks. Back to contents

IDENTIFICATION AND THE LIQUIDITY EFFECT OF MONETARY POLICY SHOCKS

ELENA-MARIA TUDOR

ABSTRACT. Bhuiyan assumes that the money demand function is a function of the contemporaneous values of the ex ante real interest rate, inflationary expectations and income level. Duarte studies the implications of nontraded goods for the nature of relative price differentials across countries under a fixed exchange rate regime, and turns to the implications of the presence of nontraded goods for the optimal response of monetary policy to country-specific shocks. Sousa and Zaghini investigate to what extent a global monetary aggregate can be useful for analyzing international liquidity conditions. Back to contents

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Linguistic and Philosophical Investigations
VOLUME 7 • 2008

AN ARGUMENT FOR ESSENTIALISM

GERARD CASEY

ABSTRACT. Having discussed some examples of anti-essentialism in Sartre and Rorty, the paper presents a general argument for essentialism based on the self-stultifying character of the anti-essentialist thesis (AET). It is concluded that the proponent of anti-essentialism is caught in an existential or performative contradiction, a contradiction between the content of what is being asserted in the AET and what the anti-essentialist is implicitly committed to in making that assertion. Back to contents

DENNETT&039;S REDUCTION OF BRENTANO&039;S INTENTIONALITY

BRENT SILBY

ABSTRACT. Since as far back as the middle ages, philosophers have been concerned with the inner representations of the mind. St Thomas Aquinas suggested that when he thinks of an object, the object of his thought has a different sort of existence in his mind. Indeed, there certainly seems to be a difference between physical phenomena and mental phenomena but merely seeming like there is a difference is not enough to show that there is a difference. In this paper I will compare two different approaches to the supposed distinction between the mental and the physical. First I will outline Brentano&039;s theory of &039;Intentionality&039;, which, in its early formulation, proposes a true distinction between physical objects and the objects of thought. I will then introduce Daniel Dennett&039;s &039;Intentional Systems Theory&039;. Dennett&039;s theory is an attempt to naturalise the mind and to reduce mental phenomena such as beliefs and desires to simple physical systems. Back to contents

THE IDENTITY OF INDISCERNIBLES AND THE ARTICULABILITY OF CONCEPTS

MICHAEL DELLA ROCCA

ABSTRACT. This paper is a response to Robin Jeshion&039;s criticisms of my recent defense of the Identity of Indiscernibles. Jeshion&039;s criticisms are shown to fail to do justice to some very natural and compelling demands for an explanation of certain features of our concepts, in particular the concept of an object and the concept of a region of space. The paper thus also illuminates the power of a methodology - arguably central to philosophy itself - that seeks to illuminate our concepts by exploring their connections to other concepts. Back to contents

DUMMETT AND THE PROBLEM OF THE VANISHING PAST

LUCA MORETTI

ABSTRACT. Dummett has recently presented his most mature and sophisticated version of justificationism, i.e. the view that meaning and truth are to be analysed in terms of justifiability. In this paper, I argue that this conception does not resolve a difficulty that also affected Dummett&039;s earlier version of justificationism: the problem that large tracts of the past continuously vanish as their traces in the present dissipate. Since Dummett&039;s justificationism is essentially based on the assumption that the speaker has limited (i.e. non-idealized) cognitive powers, no further refinement of this position is likely to settle the problem of the vanishing past. Back to contents

BARELY TRUE SUBJUNCTIVE CONDITIONALS AND ANTI-REALISM

BENJAMIN L. CURTIS

ABSTRACT. Phenomenalism, as has often been observed, is an untenable position because it is committed to there being barely true subjunctive conditionals. In this paper I argue that all anti-realists are committed to there being such conditionals, and so if phenomenalism is untenable because of this, so too are all other anti-realist accounts. I first argue that all anti-realists are committed to some instance of a schema ANT. I then argue that they are committed to a particular definition of a key term within the schema that contains a barely true subjunctive conditional. Back to contents

TRUTH, METAPHOR, AND INDETERMINABILITY

SAMUEL C. WHEELER III

ABSTRACT. This essay is an exposition, defense, supplementation, and elaboration of Donald Davidson&039;s account of metaphor. The first section outlines some features of Davidson&039;s account of language. The second section shows how Davidson&039;s account of metaphor as rhetorical fits with his general conception of language. The third section discusses the semantic indeterminacy that arises as a consequence of Davidson&039;s account of metaphor. This indeterminacy is a consequence that goes well beyond anything that Davidson explicitly acknowledged. Davidson&039;s account is committed to the thesis that the line between the metaphorical and the literal is sometimes indeterminate in principle. In effect this means that the semantics of most idiolects is indeterminate. I argue that this is a result that should be expected, given that there is indeterminacy in applying the intentional scheme and given that truth is the central concept of the intentional scheme. The fourth and fifth sections defend this conclusion against two kinds of objections. The fourth section argues that, unless a surprising reduction of semantics to neurophysiology is possible, there is no empirical criterion for a determinate line between the metaphorical and the literal. The fifth section meets the objection that a truth-conditional semantics cannot tolerate indeterminacy of truth-values. Back to contents

LANGUAGE CONVENTIONS MADE SIMPLE

RUTH G. MILLIKAN

ABSTRACT. This paper tries to capture the conventionality of natural language in much simpler terms than David Lewis&039;s, displaying continuity with more rudimentary non-coordinating conventions. Like these simpler natural conventions, natural language conventions do not involve regularities, either de facto or de jure, nor do they require rational underpinnings. This natural conventionality is composed of two simple characteristics: (1) natural conventions are reproduced patterns; (2) they are proliferated due partly to weight of precedent, rather than due, for example, to their intrinsically superior capacity to perform certain functions. These two characteristics are discussed as they characterize simple non-coordinating conventions, then simple coordination conventions, and finally language conventions. The paper argues that the conception of conventions universally adopted in speech act theory is mistaken, and points to a new way of understanding the nature of illocutionary acts. Back to contents

RATIONALITY AND PRAGMATICS

ASA KASHER

ABSTRACT. Speech acts are intentional acts and as such lend themselves to philosophical analysis in terms of ends, means and the rules that govern them. Rationality involves norms of appropriateness of means for ends. Rationality considerations are, therefore, applicable to acts of language use. Some major linguistic phenomena are explained by such considerations Back to contents

THE FUNDAMENTAL VIEW OF IDEALISM

MATTHEW J. DENSLEY

ABSTRACT. Philosophies that are labelled as &039;idealist&039; are disparate, often conflicting with each other, even on what constitutes the nature of idealism. We can find, however, a common idea that finds expression in all of them: that what is possible is in some sense limited to what is conceivable. This, I will suggest, is the fundamental view of idealism. Not only is this precept at the heart of the philosophies of Berkeley, Schopenhauer, and even Kant, but it can also be found in more contemporary approaches within analytic philosophy. Furthermore, the fundamental differences between these doctrines can be illuminated by considering how they each conform to this view: on what notion of conceivability this view is true of them. Kant&039;s relation to this precept is, perhaps, the most difficult to establish, but this very ambiguity give us scope to state an influential neo-Kantian form of idealism. Back to contents

ARGUMENT MAKING, HEURISTIC THINKING, AND THE DECISION PROCESS - A REVIEW OF PETER A. FACIONE AND NOREEN C. FACIONE&039;S BOOK THINKING AND REASONING IN HUMAN DECISION MAKING: THE METHOD OF ARGUMENT AND HEURISTIC ANALYSIS

MARIN TURLEA • GEORGE LAZAROIU

ABSTRACT. Facione and Facione see the primary object of the A&H Method as being to generate an analysis of the decision making which ordinary, rational, sane, and physiologically unimpaired persons engage in when deciding what to do in contexts involving some degree of risk or uncertainty. The A&H Method bridges the qualitative and quantitative dimensions of behavioral research. The A&H Method requires both a precise analysis of human reasoning and a careful evaluation of that reasoning, and proposes an approach to the evaluation of the explanations and arguments humans make to support their decisions about what to believe or what to do. Facione and Facione intend A&H Analysis to focus on decision making as humans engage in that process, not on decisions as may be made by machines or by other species. Back to contents

DUMNEZEU SI MORALITATE

RICHARD SWINBURNE

ABSTRACT. My topic is - what follows from the nature and will of God for the moral goodness or badness of different human actions? I assume a standard Western account of the nature of God as omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly good, creator and sustainer (from moment to moment) of the Universe and all that it contains. Back to contents

CONTEXTUALISM, ANTICONTEXTUALISM, SI ARGUMENTELE FIECAREI POZITII

AVNER BAZ

ABSTRACT. The aim of this paper is to develop a critique of the contemporary debate between "contextualists" and "anti-contextualists" with respect to the concept of propositional knowledge ("knowing that such and such"). Very roughly, I shall argue that both parties have failed to properly appreciate the extent to which, at least in the case of "know that" and its cognates, that which they tend to think of as "semantics" is tied to, and indeed is inseparable from, that which they tend to think of as "(merely) pragmatics". As a result, both parties have attempted to answer a question that rests on a mistake. Back to contents

EXISTA INCA UN SENS IN CARE MATEMATICA POATE AVEA FUNDAMENTE? (IV)

JODY AZZOUNI

ABSTRACT. An analysis of traditional mathematical proof is undertaken, with an implicit contrast to formal derivations. The semantic interpretation of mathematical terms plays a role in the former that doesn&039;t appear in the latter. This semantic interpretation, with an accompanying role for intuition, is explained in terms of inference packages, which are psychologically-bundled ways of phenomenologically exploring the effect of several assumptions at once without explicit recognition of what those assumptions are. Although its correspondence with a derivation is the (ultimate) justification for the success of a traditional proof, the certainty that mathematicians experience when they study successful traditional proofs is not due to that correspondence, but rather, for the most part, to the role of inference packages in their reasoning. Back to contents

ADVANCED MATHEMATICAL THINKING AND COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT

AUREL PERA

ABSTRACT. Bergeson et al. claim that place value is extremely significant in mathematical learning. Tall focuses attention on psychological evidence of relevance to advanced mathematical thinking. English contends that complexity is the study of systems of interconnected components whose behavior cannot be explained solely by the properties of their parts but from the behavior that arises from their interconnectedness. Feest suggests that psychology can provide autonomous explanations: in order for such explanations to be good explanations, they have to appeal to the intervening variables that realize the behavioral dispositions in questions. Back to contents

DEMOCRATIZATION AND THE ROMANIAN POST-COMMUNIST TRANSITION

STEFAN PAUN

ABSTRACT. Firebaugh and Sandu argue that the post-1989 change in former Communist societies in East and Central Europe is viewed as a double transition involving both marketization and democratization: Romanians distinguish two reform dimensions as opposed to a single "pro-Westernization" dimension. B?dil? asserts that the change of the political regimes in the Central and Eastern European countries destroyed the ideological boundaries. Rose claims that, before the Iron Curtain fell, there were two ways to determine the direction Communist countries were moving: you could take official statements at face value or rely on dissidents and refugees. Back to contents

NEWS AS A SOCIAL ARTIFACT

GEORGE LAZAROIU

ABSTRACT. Rosen claims that newspapers have to investigate the main issues of the community and give a chance to groups that have different opinions to discuss them. Entman holds that media may be systematically assisting certain entities to induce their preferred behavior in others. Ward provides the philosophical framework for pragmatic news objectivity. Picard notices that changes in technologies, society, and media-use patterns are disrupting the business models that provided financial resources for news organizations. Barnhurst observes that reporters&039; definition of news emerged as the telegraph and telephone (along with wire services) became a network for covering the who, what, when, and where of politics. Back to contents

DIFFICULTIES OF THE CAUSAL MODEL IN SOCIOLOGICAL EXPLANATION

DAN ROSCA

ABSTRACT. A functional analysis depends on causal explanations and stimulates causal explanations. The anti-positivist naturalism questions the empiricist concept of causality. The covering law theory of causality has no been successful when it comes to causal explanations of social actions. Manipulation accounts contend that a causal connection exists only where we can manipulate the cause to bring about the effect. Causal models allow us to predict the effect of changes and interventions, capitalizing on the locality of such changes. Empirical assessment of causal mechanisms does not have to go down to observations at the level of individuals. Back to contents

WHY SHOULD A TRUTH-CONDITIONAL THEORY OF MEANING TAKE THE FORM OF A PROPERLY SEMANTIC THEORY?

ADRIAN CONSTANTINESCU

ABSTRACT. Dummett argues that no part of an expression&039;s meaning can contain anything which is not manifest in the use made of it, laying solely in the mind of the individual who apprehends that meaning. Dummett points out that a theory of understanding should proceed by characterizing that knowledge whose possession is constitutive of mastery of the language in question. Dummett maintains that in the mathematical case it is necessary to distinguish between canonical or direct proofs and demonstrations or indirect proofs. Dummett states that a Platonist will admit that, for a given statement, there may be neither a proof nor a disproof of it to be found. Back to contents

SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION AND NETWORKED MULTIMEDIA ENVIRONMENTS

MADALINA NICOLOF

ABSTRACT. Rappoport and Sheinman claim that SL learners possess a mature conceptual system and are capable of explicit symbolic reasoning and abstraction. Schmidt claims that it is important to operationalize concepts such as intention, noticing, and awareness in both experimental and pedagogical settings. Bañados and Ripoli describe an interactive multimedia b-learning communicative English program which has been created using ICT tools to put SLA learning principles and CALL materials design issues into practice for innovating the teaching and learning of English as a second language. Chapelle writes that producing linguistic output forces learners to use the syntactic system and to develop this aspect of their ability, and elicits subsequent input from interlocutors, some of which may contain indications of problems with the learner&039;s output which will result in the learner&039;s noticing aspects of the linguistic form Back to contents

THE MODEL OF MEANING IN TERMS OF TRUTH-CONDITIONS

OANA GHERMAN

ABSTRACT. Dummett argues that the model of meaning in terms of truth-conditions can be vindicated only by reference to the whole language. According to Dummett, even if the two-valued semantics, the realist model of meaning in terms of truth-conditions, is required for the extended language, it was not required for the original fragment. A certain model of meaning is required only in order to validate certain forms of inference the employment of which is part of our standard practice. Davidson points out that the semantic features of language are public features. Back to contents

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MATHEMATICS EDUCATION AND THE CONJECTURAL NATURE OF EXPERIMENTAL MATHEMATICS

AUREL PERA

ABSTRACT. Leron and Hazzan show how some recent developments in cognitive psychology can help interpret empirical results from mathematics education. English states that students need to learn mathematics with understanding by actively building new knowledge from existing knowledge and experience. Bergeson et al. argue that students learning multiplication as a conceptual operation need exposure to a variety of models. Delbeke asserts that students with good conceptual understanding are able to perform successfully on near-transfer tasks and to develop procedures and skills they have not been taught. As Sigman puts it, formal ideas in mathematics reflect the workings of the brain like a massive collective cognitive experiment: mathematics is biology. Back to contents

NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND TRANSITIONAL POLITICS IN ROMANIA

STEFAN PAUN

ABSTRACT. Hockenos notes that after a short period of domestic liberalization in the 1960s, Ceau?escu initiated a ruthless antiminority campaign under the heading of "homogenization" (an euphemism for assimilation). Dragoman argues that, for Romanians, the Western nation-state has been for a long time the model of organizing the political space. Huluban says that, at the end of March 1990, Romania was the first post-communist country where there were registered violent inter-ethnic conflicts. On Rose&039;s reading, within every country there is a substantial division of opinion about how good or bad the old regime was. Back to contents

HOW THE MEDIA CONSTRUCTS REALITY

GEORGE LAZAROIU

ABSTRACT. Barnhurst states that the instantaneous distribution of newspaper stories on-line renews the possibility for newspapers to return to the doctrine of the scoop. Gilboa remarks that images of what is happening in the world are given greater significance than what really happens. Reynolds and Barnett explore how breaking news might directly influence content. Back to contents

WITTGENSTEIN AND COMMUNICATING WITH AN EXTRATERRESTRIAL INTELLIGENCE

JASON WALLER

ABSTRACT. The question I address in this paper is, "According to the later-Wittgenstein, are human beings able to communicate with an extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI)?" In addressing this question, I defend a Strong Biological Interpretation of the term "form of life" (Lebensform) as this term is used in the Philosophical Investigations. I then argue that if my interpretation is correct then significant skeptical problems make communicating with an ETI extremely unlikely. Back to contents

THE DYNAMIC NATURE OF MEANING

CLAUDIA ARRIGHI • ROBERTA FERRARIO

ABSTRACT. This paper wants to be a contribution, mainly of philosophical character, to a new current of thought and research in semantics that have been defined the "dynamic turn" in the study of meaning (cf. Peregrin, 2003). The central point of this approach to meaning is that there is not such a thing like a precise literal meaning of a word or expression, but meaning is something that gradually evolves from the dynamic processes of communication. This dynamic character is not some kind of secondary aspect of meaning, but it is instead a fundamental feature and we believe that it should receive more consideration into philosophical theories on meaning. What we are going to do is to stress the importance of this dynamic character and to make few steps towards a philosophical approach to meaning more focused on processes that shape meaning, instead of focusing on definitory issues. Back to contents

REALISM WITHOUT EMPIRICISM: WITTGENSTEIN AND WHITEHEAD

RANDY RAMAL

ABSTRACT. Whereas Ludwig Wittgenstein is known among many metaphysicians for his fervent rejection of metaphysics as a legitimate philosophical enterprise, A.N. Whitehead is often described as the chief exemplification of the systematic and explanatory metaphysician. This fact might explain why little has been written on how these two philosophers approach philosophical problems in which they shared common interest. In this paper I venture to discuss one such problem, which is the fundamental problem of the nature of reality. I investigate the sense in which Wittgenstein and Whitehead reject modern empiricism as a necessary foundation for a viable realism while still affirming the latter. I also consider the implications of their affirmations of realism for the questions of skepticism and the nature of &039;the ordinary&039;. Considering the particular philosophical orientations of Wittgenstein and Whitehead, it is significant to see how these questions fare in their works and how their affirmations of realism shed light on the still important question of the nature of philosophy. Back to contents

WITTGENSTEIN ON THE FALLACY OF THE COGITO

STEPHEN THORNTON

ABSTRACT. It is my purpose here to show that, considered exclusively as a critique of Cartesian dualism, Wittgenstein&039;s later philosophy is quite conclusive without the private language argument. His critique of the Cartesian doctrine of the self as immaterial thinking substance remains decisive (albeit less multi-dimensional) when freed from its associations with the latter, and when the focus is narrowed to the account, in The Blue Book, of the two senses attaching to the first person pronoun, "I". I conclude that the exhibition of the non-demonstrative, non-referring nature of "I" in its psychological or subject use demonstrates a deep-seated fallacy at the root of the Cartesian Cogito principle. Back to contents

THE MEANING OF CHORAL MUSICAL EXPERIENCE

ADRIANA DRAGAN

ABSTRACT. Duffy claims that choral music can offer an illuminative angle from which to examine music&039;s signification (it pairs music with sung or spoken text, offering its own independent, readily discernable meaning). Karna debates the three Regina Coeli settings of Mozart, placing them in their historical context and discussing factors that influenced their style, orchestration, and formal structure. Matta holds that Lopes-Graça&039;s choral music is a whole consisting of harmonizations of folk songs and original works. Back to contents

EMOTIONAL EXPRESSION AND COMPLEXITY IN MUSIC

VIORICA BARBU-IURASCU

ABSTRACT. Carmen-Cohen contends that non-Western cultures attach importance to the "function" of musical activity, to the musical instrument, and to the numerous connections between music and world around it. Schwartz and Godfrey affirm that many of the sources from which Western composers draw stem from cultures that are synchronic: they attach no value to concepts of cultural and societal change or progress. Huron asserts that the traditional rules of voice-leading in Western music are explained using experimentally established perceptual principles. Cash explores the vision and social meaning of "traditional life" created when folkloric ensembles perform on stage. Back to contents

TEXTURAL STRUCTURE AND MANNER OF EXECUTION IN SACRED CHORAL MUSIC

OVIDIU DRAGAN

ABSTRACT. Leaver holds that in the medieval Mass the Canon was long, largely inaudible, and interpreted as a propitiatory sacrifice. Pesce remarks that, throughout Te Deum I, Liszt retains a modal flavor that is not regularly encroached upon by leading tones (only the middle section involves vocal harmony). According to Bailey, liturgy itself holds the answer and solution to the problem of assembly singing. Back to contents

PARADIGMS OF COMPOSITIONAL LOGIC IN PIANO MUSIC

LUMINITA POGACEANU

ABSTRACT. Ritterman notices that Chopin&039;s early piano music conformed (at least externally) to the features of post-Classical concert repertoire. Finlow claims that with the etudes of Op. 10 Chopin realized the musical potential of the genre. Kinderman maintains that Beethoven&039;s musical thought was deeply rooted in the rhetorical art of the sonata style. Baker puts it that late in life Liszt discovered in his attempts to write Hungarian music the impetus towards increased experimentation. da Motta holds that in most textbooks of musical composition, the concerto form is described as inferior Back to contents

THE MELODIC SUBSTANCE OF SACRED CHORAL MUSIC

ADRIANA DRAGAN

ABSTRACT. Pesce emphasizes that Liszt contains the length of the Mass for Male Voices as a whole by concentrating on homophony and unison writing. Lodes maintains that Beethoven lived at a time when Christianity and its institutions were losing much of their power. Zaslaw argues that as long as Mozart lived in Salzburg, he was involved with music for the Catholic church. Drillock asserts that the compositional process for the Byzantine church musician consisted in fitting together short me