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| 13
March (Wednesday)
5:00 PM Room
226 |
| Ufuk
Tura
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Institute
of Philosophy, Eötvös University
Budapest
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Epistemic
Agents, Semantics and
the Problem of Maximal
Correlation
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Szabó in various articles
(2003;2012; 2017;2019) put forward
a radical physicalist ontological
picture of the world. In this body
of work, deriving from Gödel’s
construction of how to represent
meta-arithmetic facts, he lays out
a physical definition of the
semantic relationship. In this
presentation, based on his
definition of semantics, I will
first attempt to articulate
certain properties of the “meaning
making” epistemic agents. In this
part, it will be argued that 1) An
epistemic agent must be able to
differentiate between elements of
the formal system that correspond
to a state of affairs in the
universe from those that are
axiomatic to the system alone
(internal-external distinction).
As such an epistemic agent needs a meta-theory in
the form of (M,S) to account for
the maximal correlation between
the physical constituents of the
formal system and particular
events in the universe;
2) The epistemic agent must be
able to discern that if ¬a is observed,
¬A is not a semantically
meaningful theorem although
there may be a maximal
correlation between the elements
of the formal system providing
the theorem ¬A and state of
affairs in the universe. In
the second part, it will be argued
that the semantic relationship
defined as “a real maximal
conjunctive correlation between
elements of the formal system and
particular state of affairs in the
world “seem to inherit two
problems. First problem could be
laid out as the differentiation
problem between a perceived
correlation and a real
correlation, while the second
problem is the rarity of the
maximal correlation in many
branches of sciences. Here,
certain solutions to these
problems will be offered and
discussion will revolve around the
lack of holistic theories and the
problem of explaining
particular-events with type-event
vocabulary.
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| 20
March (Wednesday)
5:00 PM Room
226 |
Sunil
Kumar Sekar
and László
E. Szabó
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Department
of Logic, Institute of
Philosophy
Eötvös University Budapest
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On
the origin of
irreversibility
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First, very briefly, we
will recall the century-long
arduous work to understand how the
irreversibility in the behavior of
a macroscopic system can be
explained by the underlying
behavior of its
micro-constituents, and summarize
the standard problems raised with
respect to the various approaches.
Then we will propose a bold but
extremely simple thesis. We will
argue that – contrary to the
standard approaches – irreversibility
is caused merely by a slight
level of indeterminacy in the
underlying microscopic processes,
within a short period of time;
regardless of the initial state of
the system; with no allusion to
“ensembles” of similar systems,
“probability distribution” over
such ensembles, or “probability
distribution” over initial
conditions, or over phase space
cells; neither in the present nor
in the past.
The thesis will be supported by a
computer simulation. As it will be
seen, the simulation itself
requires some tricks in order to
isolate and control the appearance
of indeterminacy in the process.
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| 27
March (Wednesday)
5:00 PM Room
226 |
| Luis
Fernando
Murillo
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Department
of Logic, Institute of
Philosophy
Eötvös University Budapest
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Nominalism
and Psychologism
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What exactly do we
allege when we claim that two
entities belong to the same
species? What individual thing or
entity is it that we talk about
when we say two objects share
commonality. The late Scholastic
reception of the Platonic doctrine
of Forms, and the Aristotelian
critique thereof, culminate in
Ockham’s refusal to posit the
existence of separate qualities
outside the mind. “Nullum
universale est substantia
qualitercumque consideretur, sed
quodlibet universale est
intentio animae. No matter
how we look at it, no universal is
a substance, all universals
whatsoever are the conception of
the mind. (Summa Logica I, 15).”
According to this theory of
predication, there is no such
thing as a universal that impinges
itself on the mind, but rather the
mind constructs universals as
mental representations of reality.
How and why pluralities of objects
evoke the usage of the same word
is left open, but what is clear is
that the denial of commonality in
re, ushers in a philosophy of
language marked by
psychologism whereby the
attribution of objects to a class
rests not on real commonalities of
the objects but of the minds
examining them. “To be guilty of
psychologism is to suppose that
the term ‘means’ in “A means B”
stands for a psychological fact
involving the symbol ‘A’ and the
item ‘B’ “ (Sellars). I will
thematise some conundrums and
circularities entailed by the
theories of Ockham’s epigones and
opponents.
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