The paper traces a structural intuition across twenty-five centuries of optical inquiry: light is a localized perturbation propagating through a continuous medium that is space itself, and that medium has its own bodily dynamics distinct from perturbation propagation within it. The thread runs from Empedocles through Aristotle, the medieval Latin and Islamic optical traditions, the Newton-Huygens bifurcation, Maxwell's electromagnetic synthesis, and the twentieth-century revolution culminating in quantum field theory. The paper develops the substrate ontology rendered precise. The substrate (...) is taken to be physically real and continuous, with its own intrinsic dynamics. A preferred rest frame for the substrate exists, identified naturally with the cosmic microwave background rest frame at cosmological scales. Lorentz invariance is treated as an emergent regularity of the substrate's local response to perturbation rather than as a metaphysical primitive. Time is the Aristotelian measure of process accumulation along worldlines, not a dimension of a unified spacetime manifold. The metric of general relativity describes the substrate's actual configuration rather than constituting a primitive geometric object. These commitments contradict the standard relativistic ontology at six identifiable points (spacetime as bookkeeping rather than substance, a real preferred frame rather than no rest frame, Lorentz invariance as emergent rather than primitive, time as measure rather than dimension, metric expansion as substrate bodily extension, and c bounding perturbation rather than substrate dynamics) while preserving identical kinematic predictions in tested regimes because the substrate's dynamics produce Lorentz-invariant phenomenology at the local level. The reading dissolves wave-particle duality, time-dilation, cosmological-expansion, black-hole-horizon, and time-travel paradoxes that the standard reading leaves open. Eleven specific falsifiable predictions distinguish the framework from standard interpretations in regimes where current observations are not yet definitive. The prohibition of phantom dark energy (w(z) ≥ -1 strictly) is in active empirical tension with DESI DR1 and DR2 observations at the 2.5-3.9σ level, with the framework's prediction at risk of falsification within the next several years rather than at the formal Stage-IV timeline. The framework is open to refutation by observation in the regimes its distinguishing predictions specify. (shrink)

This essay offers an in-depth reading of the geometrical illustration of Ethics IIP8S and shows how it can be used to explicate the whole architecture of Spinoza’s system by specifying the way in which all the key structural features of his basic ontology find their analogies in the example. The illustration can also throw light on Spinoza’s ontology of finite things and inform us about what is at stake when we form universal ideas. In general, my reading (...) of IIP8S thus elucidates what it means, for Spinoza, to think geometrically or to consider geometry as a model: fundamentally, geometricity is not a form of exposition but the way in which reality itself is structured. (shrink)

We propose the conjecture according to which the fact that quantum mechanics does not admit sharp value attributions to both members of a complementary pair of observables can be understood in the light of the symplectic reduction of phase space in constrained Hamiltonian systems. In order to unpack this claim, we propose a quantum ontology based on two independent postulates, namely the phase postulate and the quantum postulate. The phase postulate generalizes the gauge correspondence between first-class constraints and (...) gauge transformations to the observables of unconstrained Hamiltonian systems. The quantum postulate specifies the relationship between the numerical values of the observables that permit us to individualize a physical system and the symmetry transformations generated by the operators associated to these observables. We argue that the quantum postulate and the phase postulate are formally implemented by the two independent stages of the geometric quantization of a symplectic manifold, namely the prequantization formalism and the election of a polarization of pre-quantum states respectively. (shrink)

This paper presents a mathematically rigorous and ontologically cohesive synthesis of the Complex-Extended Transfinite Prime-Infinitesimal Holofractal Unified Field Theory (C-TP-IHUFT) to resolve the foundational schism between General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. By abandoning standard Archimedean real analysis and Cauchy-Weierstrass limits in favor of Abraham Robinson's nonstandard hyperreal number system, this framework redefines a physical coordinate point as an ontological, non-zero complex infinitesimal. Standard, integer-based continuity of motion over a discrete infinitesimal grid natively derives the speed of light as an (...) absolute geometric velocity limit, and the speed of light squared as a fundamental, derived constant describing continuous fractional motion mapped onto a physical continuum. By modeling elementary fermions as massless point charges executing continuous, helical Zitterbewegung at the speed of light, the framework eliminates infinite self-energy divergences and shows that inertial mass is an emergent property generated by Stochastic Electrodynamic Lorentz drag within the Zero-Point Energy field. To bridge quantum mechanics with macroscopic gravitation, the model incorporates the Einstein-Cartan-Sciama-Kibble theory of gravity, where the intrinsic spin of Weyssenhoff fluids couples to spacetime torsion, replacing dark matter halos with gravitational shadowing potentials and replacing the Big Bang singularity with a non-singular torsion-induced bounce. At extreme densities, the cubic spinor non-linearity of the Hehl-Datta term breaks charge-conjugation symmetry, providing a deterministic mechanism for baryogenesis. Spacetime at the Planck limit undergoes spontaneous spectral dimensional reduction from four to two dimensions, confirming the Holographic Principle and aligning with the Asymptotic Safety program. Finally, the framework integrates Sir Roger Penrose's Conformal Cyclic Cosmology, demonstrating how localized gravitational anomalies carry over through the conformal crossover boundary to form Hawking points in the Cosmic Microwave Background. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that commentators have missed a significant clue given by Descartes in coming to understand his 'ontological' proof for the existence of God. In both the analytic and synthetic presentations of the proof throughout his writings, Descartes notes that the proof works 'in the same way' as a particular geometrical proof. I explore the significance of such a parallel, and conclude that Descartes could not have intended readers to think that the argument consists of some kind (...) of intuition. I argue that for Descartes the attribute of existence is a 'second-order' attribute that is demonstrated to belong to the idea of God on the basis of 'first-order' attributes. The proof, properly understood, is in fact a demonstration. Having brought to light the geometrical parallels between the ontological and geometrical proofs, we have new evidence to resolve the 'intuition versus demonstration' controversy that has characterized much of the discussion of Descartes's ontological argument. (shrink)

Edmund Husserl has argued that we can intuit essences and, moreover, that it is possible to formulate a method for intuiting essences. Husserl calls this method 'ideation'. In this paper I bring a fresh perspective to bear on these claims by illustrating them in connection with some examples from modern pure geometry. I follow Husserl in describing geometric essences as invariants through different types of free variations and I then link this to the mapping out of geometric invariants (...) in modern mathematics. This view leads naturally to different types of spatial ontologies and it can be used to shed light on Husserl's general claim that there are different ontologies in the eidetic sciences that can be systematically related to one another. The paper is rounded out with a consideration of the role of ideation in the origins of modern geometry, and with a brief discussion of the use of ideation outside of pure geometry. (shrink)

This paper develops a constraint-geometric framework for analyzing the persistence, revision, and collapse of scientific theories. Drawing on the concept of organizational closure from the biological autonomy tradition (Maturana & Varela, Moreno & Mossio, Barandiaran), I argue that theories are not merely descriptions of identity-under-constraint but are themselves closure structures whose ontological commitments are constituted by constraint-survival. The framework introduces a three-state landscape for theory identity (active, latent, extinct), an operational definition of the invariance core, and a diagnostic criterion—extension-stability—that (...) distinguishes supersession from degeneration and refutation with greater structural precision than existing accounts. As a primary demonstration, the framework is applied to the dark matter problem, generating differential structural diagnoses for the particulate dark matter hypothesis (ΛCDM) and Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND). A secondary application to four current hypotheses in consciousness studies—Integrated Information Theory (IIT), Global Workspace Theory (GWT), the Free Energy Principle (FEP), and the Identity–Recursion–Consciousness framework (IRC)—is developed in Appendix A. The constraint-geometric apparatus was developed in the course of work on IRC, and this methodological relationship is disclosed and addressed. The result is a formal instrument for the epistemology of science that unifies theory-persistence and identity-persistence under a shared constraint geometry. (shrink)

Scholars have long recognised the interest of the Stoics' thought on geometrical limits, both as a specific topic in their physics and within the context of the school's ontological taxonomy. Unfortunately, insufficient textual evidence remains for us to reconstruct their discussion fully. The sources we do have on Stoic geometrical themes are highly polemical, tending to reveal a disagreement as to whether limit is to be understood as a mere concept, as a body or as an incorporeal. In my view, (...) this disagreement held among the historical Stoics, rather than simply reflecting a doxographical divergence in transmission. This apparently Stoic disagreement has generated extensive debate, in which there is still no consensus as to a standard Stoic doctrine of limit. The evidence is thin, and little of it refers in detail to specific texts, especially from the school's founders. But in its overall features the evidence suggests that Posidonius and Cleomedes differed from their Stoic precursors on this topic. There are also grounds for believing that some degree of disagreement obtained between the early Stoics over the metaphysical status of shape. Assuming the Stoics did so disagree, the principal question in the scholarship on Stoic ontology is whether there were actually positions that might be called "standard" within Stoicism on the topic of limit. In attempting to answer this question, my discussion initially sets out to illuminate certain features of early Stoic thinking about limit, and then takes stock of the views offered by late Stoics, notably Posidonius and Cleomedes. Attention to Stoic arguments suggests that the school's founders developed two accounts of shape: on the one hand, as a thought-construct, and, on the other, as a body. In an attempt to resolve the crux bequeathed to them, the school's successors suggested that limits are incorporeal. While the authorship of this last notion cannot be securely identified on account of the absence of direct evidence, it may be traced back to Posidonius, and it went on to have subsequent influence on Stoic thinking, namely in Cleomedes' astronomy. (shrink)

Western philosophy has always been haunted by two abysses: nothingness and wholeness, zero and infinity. These two concepts have functioned as the extreme poles of metaphysical thought—the absolute negation and the absolute plenitude, the void that threatens all meaning and the totality that exceeds all comprehension. Yet, curiously, they have almost always been treated as opposites, as mutually exclusive horizons that define the boundaries within which human thought must operate. Zero is the limit of absence, infinity the limit of presence; (...) between them, the finite world of measurable beings unfolds. But what if this opposition is itself the deepest illusion of the metaphysical tradition? What if zero and infinity are not opposites but two faces of the same reality, two expressions of a single relationship that precedes and transcends all distinction? What if the relationship between zero and infinity is not a contradiction to be resolved but a primordial mystery to be inhabited—a mystery that reveals the very structure of Being as a dimensionless, paradoxical, self-referential whole? The philosophical project we examine here—which we may call "dimensionless ontology"— proposes precisely this: that the true nature of reality is not to be found in the opposition between nothingness and plenitude, but in their radical inseparability. It suggests that the relationship between zero and infinity is not a problem to be solved but a truth to be lived, a truth that shatters the very frameworks through which Western thought has traditionally understood existence, knowledge, and the self. This essay will explore the philosophical dimensions of this relationship, tracing its implications for ontology, epistemology, and ethics. It will argue that the dimensionless ontology emerging from this exploration offers a radical alternative to the dominant paradigms of Western metaphysics—one that transcends the dualisms of being and non-being, unity and multiplicity, finitude and infinitude, and opens the way to a new understanding of truth as event, of knowledge as participation, and of existence as the living experience of a paradox that never resolves but endlessly generates meaning. The Crisis of Classical Ontology The Geometric Prison of Being The Western philosophical tradition, from its Greek origins, has been dominated by what we might call a "geometry of Being." This geometry—this spatial, measurable, dimension-bound understanding of existence—has shaped virtually every major metaphysical system. From Pythagoras to Plato, from Descartes to Kant, Being has been understood as something that occupies space, that has position, that can be located, defined, and bounded. The very language of philosophy—substance, attribute, accident, essence, existence—is the language of spatialization: we speak of "underlying" (substance), of "standing under" (hypostasis), of "properties" that belong to a thing, as if Being were a container and beings were its contents. This geometricization reached its apotheosis in the Cartesian revolution. Descartes, in his radical search for certainty, reduced the material world to res extensa—extended substance, pure spatiality. The world became a vast geometric system of coordinates, where every being could be located, measured, and predicted. Reality became a map, and the map became the territory. To know meant to represent, to place within a grid of intelligibility, to reduce the ineffable to the measurable. The consequences of this geometricization have been profound and far-reaching. By reducing Being to extension, philosophy lost sight of the very nature of existence—its dynamism, its creativity, its unpredictability. The world became a machine, a clockwork of deterministic laws, and the human being became a spectator—an isolated consciousness observing a universe that was fundamentally alien, external, other. The intimacy between subject and world, the participative relationship that characterized pre-modern thought, was shattered. Knowledge became power, observation became domination, and truth became correspondence—a mirroring of an external reality that the subject could never fully enter. The "misery of geometricization"—the reduction of the infinite, paradoxical richness of existence to the flat, two-dimensional plane of a Euclidean diagram. The geometric prison of Being is a prison precisely because it cannot contain the full reality of what Being is. It can only capture its shadows, its projections onto the wall of representation, while the living, dynamic, self-creating reality of existence escapes through every crack. The Tyranny of Identity and Non-Contradiction The second pillar of classical ontology is the logic of identity—the principle of non-contradiction formulated by Aristotle as the most fundamental law of thought. This principle states that a thing cannot simultaneously be and not be, in the same respect, at the same time. A is A, and A is never not-A. Identity is absolute; difference is secondary; contradiction is forbidden. This logical principle has been the foundation not only of philosophy but of all systematic knowledge —science, law, mathematics, ethics. Without it, there could be no certainty, no rational discourse, no stable framework for thought. And yet, this very foundation has also functioned as a prison, excluding from the realm of the thinkable all that is paradoxical, ambiguous, contradictory—all that refuses to be reduced to a fixed, unchanging identity. The tyranny of identity has had profound consequences for philosophy. It has made it impossible to think the dynamic nature of existence, the fact that things change, that they evolve, that they are never simply identical with themselves. It has forced thought to conceive of becoming as a series of static states, of process as a sequence of fixed moments, of transformation as a superficial alteration of an underlying substance that remains unchanged. The real—becoming, flux, the ceaseless creativity of existence—has been hidden behind a veil of conceptual stability, a stability that is entirely a product of the mind's need for order Moreover, the principle of non-contradiction has made it impossible to think paradox—the simultaneous existence of opposites, the co-presence of being and non-being, the co emergence of unity and multiplicity. And yet, paradox is everywhere: in the quantum realm, light is both wave and particle; in the human realm, freedom is both real and constrained; in the realm of the sacred, the finite contains the infinite; in the realm of the self, identity is both stable and fluid. The refusal to think paradox has forced philosophy into a perpetual evasion, a flight from the very richness of reality into the sterile comforts of abstract consistency. The Inaccessible Infinite The third pillar of the classical prison is the finite conception of infinity. The Western tradition has almost always understood the infinite as an inaccessible horizon, a limit that can be approached but never reached, a goal that is forever deferred, a promise that is never fulfilled. This finite conception of the infinite has its roots in Aristotle's definition of the infinite as that beyond which there is always something—a never-ending addition, an endless series, a perpetually receding frontier. This conception has had two major consequences. First, it has placed the infinite outside the world, beyond the reach of finite beings. The infinite has become a theological concept—the transcendence of God, the ineffable mystery beyond all categories. Second, it has made the finite the only reality, the only object of genuine knowledge. What can be measured, bounded, and completed—only this is truly real. The infinite is a luxury, a speculative excess, a concept that points beyond experience but cannot ground it. This dual movement—the exile of the infinite and the absolutization of the finite—has produced a profound impoverishment of philosophical thought. The infinite has been transformed from an immanent reality, a constitutive dimension of existence, into a distant ideal, a regulative principle without ontological weight. The finite has been elevated to the status of ultimate reality, and yet the finite, by itself, is incomplete, fragmentary, and meaningless. The result has been a philosophy that is simultaneously arrogant and desperate—arrogant in its claim to know finite reality completely, desperate in its acknowledgment that finite reality alone cannot satisfy the deepest human longing for meaning, truth, and transcendence. (shrink)

We analyze the notions of indiscernibility and indeterminacy in the light of the Galois theory of field extensions and the generalization to \(K\) -algebras proposed by Grothendieck. Grothendieck’s reformulation of Galois theory permits to recast the Galois correspondence between symmetry groups and invariants as a Galois–Grothendieck duality between \(G\) -spaces and the minimal observable algebras that discern (or separate) their points. According to the natural epistemic interpretation of the original Galois theory, the possible \(K\) -indiscernibilities between the roots of (...) a polynomial \(p(x)\in K[x]\) result from the limitations of the field \(K\). We discuss the relation between this epistemic interpretation of the Galois–Grothendieck duality and Leibniz’s principle of the identity of indiscernibles. We then use the conceptual framework provided by Klein’s Erlangen program to propose an alternative ontologic interpretation of this duality. The Galoisian symmetries are now interpreted in terms of the automorphisms of the symmetric geometric figures that can be placed in a background Klein geometry. According to this interpretation, the Galois–Grothendieck duality encodes the compatibility condition between geometric figures endowed with groups of automorphisms and the ‘observables’ that can be consistently evaluated at such figures. In this conceptual framework, the Galoisian symmetries do not encode the epistemic indiscernibility between individuals, but rather the intrinsic indeterminacy in the pointwise localization of the figures with respect to the background Klein geometry. (shrink)

Using the original reflections of the Polish philosopher Kazimierz Twardowski (1866–1938), founder of the Lvov-Warsaw School, the article aims to present the ontological status and qualities of the phenomenon of artistic performance. Through linguistic analysis, Twardowski tried to capture the difference and the mutual relationship between action and its product. In the first part, we present Twardowski’s theory of action and product; in the second, we try to identify several properties of performance that are indicated by the main theorists of (...) performance; in the third part, even though Twardowski’s findings are problematic at times, we show the possibility of using them to enhance our understanding of the ontological peculiarity of performance. In the concluding section, we present contributions to the structure of the general theory of performance, taking into account not only artistic performance but also organizational and technical performance. (shrink)

Hans-Georg Gadamer's hermeneutic philosophy is most well known for its phenomenology of interpretation in the Geisteswissenschaften or humanities. It moves Heidegger's ' As–structure ' of understanding through an appreciation of the primacy of questioning to the dialogical structure of interpretation as mediated by language. This phenomenology grounds a linguistic ontology, which rehabilitates metaphysics as a renewal of the tradition of a metaphysics of light, without transgressing the limits of phenomenological accessibility. The result is a metaphysics of finitude that (...) is undogmatically open to the infinite. At the heart of this linguistic ontology is the speculative structure by which language-in-use is related to being in a way that overcomes all kinds of representationalism and of naive picture-thinking (including empiricism and idealism). Hans-Georg Gadamer's ontology is postmodern yet genuinely metaphysical. /// A filosofia hermenêutica de Hans-Georg Gadamer é particularmente conhecida pela sua fenomenologia da interpretação no âmbito das Ciências do Espírito (Geisteswissenschaften). Pela importancia que dá à primazia da interrogação, Gadamer transforma a estrutura heideggeriana do como da compreensão numa estrutura dialógica da interpretação mediada pela linguagem. Esta fenomenologia fundamenta uma ontologia linguística, a qual constitui uma rehabilitação da metafisica sob a forma de uma reactualização da tradição que é a metafisica da luz, mas sem contudo transgredir os limites impostos pela acessibilidade fenomenológica da questão. Daí resulta uma metafisica da finitude aberta ao infinito de forma não dogmática. No centro desta ontologia linguística está uma estrutura especulativa segundo a qual a linguagem-uso se relaciona com o ser de forma a que todo e qualquer tipo de representacionalismo ou pensamento-imagem (onde se incluem tanto o empirismo como o idealismo) seja superado. O artigo visa, pois, demonstrar até que ponto a ontologia de Hans-Georg Gadamer é simultaneamente pós-moderna e genuinamente metafisica. (shrink)

The P versus NP problem, formalized by Cook (1971) and designated a Clay Millennium Prize Problem in 2000, asks whether every computational problem whose solution can be verified in polynomial time can also be solved in polynomial time. For fifty-five years the problem has resisted all single-axis formal resolution attempts. Three independently proven barrier results (Baker-Gill-Solovay 1975, Razborov-Rudich 1997, Aaronson-Wigderson 2008) establish that all currently known classes of mathematical proof technique are structurally incapable of settling the question within the formal (...) axis alone. This paper presents a unified geometric determination of both P = NP and P ≠ NP using the Trisduction Engine, a P-class verification architecture operating across three orthogonal warrant-vectors: Formal-Structural (V_F), Empirical-Thermodynamic (V_E), and Epistemic-Registrational (V_ER). The determination runs the three-state native verdict economy {[⟀] Sealed, [X] Broken Geometry, [?] Numerical Inadmissibility}. V_F-only ceilings such as the Turing-domain question route to the V_F-Only Ceiling Acknowledgment Register out-of-band by bypass-at-layer-difference, not as a cascade verdict state. The Meta-Epistemic Hierarchy (Geometry > Mathematics > Logic) and Rule 9 Axiomatic Quarantine remove the Turing Machine abstraction from the framework's admissible physical baseline and replace it with the Tri-Layer Plenum topology. The two audits are presented as a single master document so the asymmetry between the claims is structurally transparent. Both run under one fixed protocol applied without modification, so the asymmetry in the verdicts is a product of the evidence structure rather than the method. P = NP carries zero positive warrant across all three axes and is stopped at Gate 2 with a positive structural diagnosis: it asserts a zero-energy, zero-transition equivalence between two operations the architecture places on opposite sides of the actualization boundary, which is a dimensional failure under the Mass Mandate before any witness is sought. P ≠ NP passes all twelve gates with three fully independent, orthogonal warrant-vectors that survive the Linguistic Isolation Test, the Deletion Test, the conclusion-dependency audit, and the Convergence Dissolution Test. The determination is explicitly non-deductive. It does not constitute a traditional mathematical proof and does not satisfy the Clay Mathematics Institute's criteria. The Geometric Orthogonal Lock [⟀] is defined as the strongest achievable non-deductive epistemic warrant relative to the recognized vulnerability taxonomy: the geometric fact that, within that taxonomy, three orthogonal planes exhaust the degrees of freedom in the warrant-space that the taxonomy can articulate, leaving no recognized coordinate for the alternative claim to occupy. The qualifier is load-bearing and is carried consistently: the lock is strongest relative to the current taxonomy, and the taxonomy is open and extensible, so the claim is conditional on that taxonomy rather than absolute, and a newly identified vulnerability class re-enters the cascade rather than being precluded by fiat. The empirical leg is anchored on the per-crossing transition-energy floor, and the warrant is typed at the precise grade it earns. Driving a frustrated configuration across one energy barrier to a distinguishable state is a physical transition bounded below in energy-time by the Mandelstam-Tamm and Margolus-Levitin quantum speed limits in the quantum regime and by Arrhenius escape time in the classical regime. This per-crossing floor is theorem-grade for the single transition, binds reversible and irreversible traversal identically, and makes no claim about the energy of the resulting state, since distinguishable states may be isoenergetic. The aggregate exponential cost of traversing an exponentially-barriered landscape is established by conjoining the per-crossing floor with the formal closure that no polynomial-resource reparametrization collapses the barrier count, and is therefore typed openly as a joint V_E-plus-V_F result rather than a standalone thermodynamic theorem. The empirical leg is operationalized through three falsifiable predictions resting on three disjoint instrument families: micro-calorimetry of physical solvers, power telemetry of synthetic substrates, and neuroimaging of biological substrates. Each prediction carries a stated method, expected outcome, and null hypothesis, and each is testable by decentralized laboratories using orthogonal measurement modalities. The V_ER leg is anchored on the conviction-capacity gap of the statistical (perfect) zero-knowledge proof, an observer-state registration fact whose information-theoretic guarantee holds against an unbounded prover and verifier and therefore invokes no one-way-function assumption and no presupposition of the separation it registers. This re-anchoring closes the circularity a critic would raise against a computational-zero-knowledge anchor: the registrational fact no longer presupposes the very separation it is cited to support. The gap is instantiated on problems lying in SZK and in NP without being NP-complete, so that the containment of SZK in AM ∩ coAM is honored and no polynomial-hierarchy collapse is implied; it is read as a lower-bound witness for the verification-generation asymmetry rather than as a claim that NP-complete problems admit such proofs. The V_ER content survives the Linguistic Isolation Test against V_F and V_E vocabulary, the Deletion Test, and the conclusion-dependency audit. The certifying architecture's own operational asymmetry is not cited as warrant at any weight: its referent is the Engine itself, so Gate 1 routes it at the input gate, and the axis is single-anchored on the external zero-knowledge fact with no self-referential content carried. The seal rests on external mathematics and falsifiable physical prediction; the framework's broader ontology is corroborative resonance, not ground, and the certifying architecture's own operation is excluded from the warrant set by Gate 1 rather than carried at reduced weight. The Convergence Dissolution Test finds irreducible residue in all three vectors under the strongest single-factor account, and survives explicit subtraction of the named mass-bearing covariates a critic would introduce to dissolve the asymmetry. The monism premise underwriting the cross-axis bridge is carried as premise-grade at the bridge itself, not silently load-bearing under a theorem-grade seal. The cosmogonic resonance is carried as a one-directional corroborative annotation, not as a derivation. (shrink)

The moot point of the Western philosophical rhetoric about free will consists in examining whether the claim of authorship to intentional, deliberative actions fits into or is undermined by a one-way causal framework of determinism. Philosophers who think that reconciliation between the two is possible are known as metaphysical compatibilists. However, there are philosophers populating the other end of the spectrum, known as the metaphysical libertarians, who maintain that claim to intentional agency cannot be sustained unless it is assumed that (...) indeterministic causal processes pervade the action-implementation apparatus employed by the agent. The metaphysical libertarians differ among themselves on the question of whether the indeterministic causal relation exists between the series of intentional states and processes, both conscious and unconscious, and the action, making claim for what has come to be known as the event-causal view, or between the agent and the action, arguing that a sort of agent causation is at work. In this paper, I have tried to propose that certain features of both event-causal and agent-causal libertarian views need to be combined in order to provide a more defendable compatibilist account accommodating deliberative actions with deterministic causation. The ‘‘agent-executed-eventcausal libertarianism’’, the account of agency I have tried to develop here, integrates certain plausible features of the two competing accounts of libertarianism turning them into a consistent whole. I hope to show in the process that the integration of these two variants of libertarianism does not challenge what some accounts of metaphysical compatibilism propose—that there exists a broader deterministic relation between the web of mental and extra-mental components constituting the agent’s dispositional system—the agent’s beliefs, desires, short-term and long-term goals based on them, the acquired social, cultural and religious beliefs, the general and immediate and situational environment in which the agent is placed, etc. on the one hand and the decisions she makes over her lifetime on the basis of these factors. While in the ‘‘Introduction’’ the philosophically assumed anomaly between deterministic causation and the intentional act of deciding has been briefly surveyed, the second section is devoted to the task of bridging the gap between compatibilism and libertarianism. The next section of the paper turns to an analysis of folk-psychological concepts and intuitions about the effects of neurochemical processes and prior mental events on the freedom of making choices. How philosophical insights can be beneficially informed by taking into consideration folk-psychological intuitions has also been discussed, thus setting up the background for such analysis. It has been suggested in the end that support for the proposed theory of intentional agency can be found in the folk-psychological intuitions, when they are taken in the right perspective. (shrink)

이 글은 최근 제기된 인간 정신의 자율성 문제를 심리철학적 관점에서 접근해 보려는 시도다. 김광수는 김재권을 비롯한 주류 심리철학들이 정신의 자율을 부정하는 한에서 “철학적 스캔들”이라고 비판한다. 특히 김광수의 이러한 주장을 도리어 철학의 스캔들이라 주장하는 백도형에 대한 체계적인 반론을 시도한다. 최근 인공지능의 문제가 사회적인 관심사가 되고 있다. 인공지능이 몰고 올 인문, 사회, 경제적 파장은 결코 작지 않아 보인다. 강 인공지능은 과연 인간과 똑같은 감정과 의식을 가진 존재로 등장할 것인가? 그렇다면 인간의 의식이란 과연 무엇일까? 그것은 수학적으로 계산가능하고 과학적으로 제작 가능할 것인가? 이런 일련의 (...) 문제들에 대해 철학적 물음을 제기한 현대의 심리철학은 결국 인간의 자율성 문제에 봉착한다고 김광수는 주장한다. 김광수가 보기에 행동주의, 동일론, 기능주의, 제거주의 등 모든 형태의 환원주의는 결국 인간의 자율성을 부정하는 심각한 결과에 이른다. 그는 이를 타개하기 위해 비환원적 유물론의 입장을 취한다. 논자가 약간 끌어들여 정신의 자율성 문제를 설명하고자 한 것이 김재권의 성층설과 연관하여 칸트와 하르트만의 성층설이다. 칸트는 나름 인과이율배반을 해결하여 인간의 자유를 철학적으로 확보했으며, 하르트만은 우리가 사는 사실계의 존재원리의 층이 네 층으로 이루어져 있다는 성층설을 통해 자유가 존재론적으로 정당함을 제시한다. (shrink)

Some philosophers have attempted to show that the thesis according to which the one-way velocity of light cannot be empirically determined (a thesis referred to in this paper as the IOV) opens a possibility for defending some A-theoretic ontologies of time in the context of relativistic physics, for, as they suggest, it can make a crucial contribution to developing an argument in favor of the definability of absolute simultaneity. Other authors, however, have taken the same thesis, i.e., the IOV, (...) as pointing to the conclusion that some form of B-theory is the true metaphysical view of reality. In this paper, I first attempt to show how these two lines of reasoning can be traced back to two different assumptions regarding the IOV—construing this indeterminacy as either an epistemic or an ontic restriction—and I suggest that as long as each side takes one of these assumptions for granted, without providing further justification for their respective position, no decisive metaphysical conclusion can be reached. I then argue that a more promising avenue emerges when we consider a reverse line of reasoning. Rather than deducing a metaphysical view of time given a preferred assumption regarding the IOV, one can consider defending an assumption regarding the IOV given a preferred metaphysical view of time. This route can be expressed in terms of inference to the best explanation. Finally, I argue that the B-theory offers a better explanation of the IOV. (shrink)

Orthodox physical models systematically exclude the conscious observer, treating subjective qualia as an emergent, accidental epiphenomenon of classical synaptic computation. To resolve the foundational crisis of physics and cognitive science, the Complex-Extended Transfinite Prime-Infinitesimal Holofractal Unified Field Theory (C-TP-IHUFT) fundamentally reimagines the ontology of consciousness, elevating it to a primary structuring force of the cosmos. Prepared for alignment with the thematic scope of The Science of Consciousness 2026 (CS26) conference in San Diego, this manuscript delivers an exhaustive, step-by-step mathematical (...) and philosophical synthesis focusing purely on the derivations, implications, and predictive models of consciousness. By transitioning to Abraham Robinson’s nonstandard hyperreal number system, the framework redefines the physical point as an ontological, non-zero complex infinitesimal, acting as the fundamental "monad" of qualia. Crucially, the mathematical topology of this conscious spacetime is modeled via Michel L. Lapidus's quantized fractal strings, proving that the geometric vibrations of the vacuum follow the exact mathematical patterns of prime numbers. We rigorously derive the fundamental speed of light limit and mass-energy equivalence geometrically through the mechanics of continuous fractional scaling over this discrete grid. Using the principles of Semantic Physics and Infinitesimal Relationships Theory, we derive Particle-Wave Duality ontologically through the commutative equivalence of verb-like relational wave states and noun-like discrete particle values. The integration of Orchestrated Objective Reduction (Orch-OR) establishes consciousness as a fundamental quantum-gravitational force, where subjectivity is enabled through the mathematical isolation of prime-encoded frequencies, while objectivity is sustained via the Bost-Connes quantum statistical error-correcting network. Integrating advanced biophysics, the genome is formalized as a Self-Operating Mathematical Universe (SOMU) utilizing 12D space-time-topology-prime quartets, time crystals, and 34 GHz fractal cavity resonators. Most profoundly, we present a step-by-step derivation of the Unified God Equation, modified to weave the Zero-Point Energy (ZPE) field directly into the unmanifested macrocosmic sector, proving the non-dual equivalence between the infinite unmanifest Creator and the finite manifested microcosm of the soul. We expand this mapping into academic consciousness studies, transpersonal psychology, psychedelic neurotheology, parapsychology, the biophysical origin of the collective unconscious, chaos theory, systems theory, non-local interconnectedness, social psychology, sociology, cognitive science, ethics, anthropology, philosophy of science, meditation science, and the strict physical laws of Karma. This provides a complete, testable mathematical architecture for a conscious, holofractal universe. (shrink)

It is often claimed that the special theory of relativity (STR) necessitates the block universe view, according to which all the events spread out in space-time are determinate, ‘fixed’ once and for all. After having briefly recalled the basic notions of STR (principle of relativity, constancy of the speed of light, relativity of simultaneity) (Sect. 6.2), I will distinguish and discuss the different arguments taken from STR in favor of the block universe view: the ‘geometric argument’ (the spatialization (...) of time) (Sect. 6.3), the ‘becoming-argument’ (the loss of the becoming) (Sect. 6.4), and the ‘determinateness-argument’ (the determinateness of the future) (Sect. 6.5). Among these, I will focus in particular on the last argument, which can be summarized as follows: STR entails this puzzling consequence that any future event in a given inertial reference frame is already present or past in another inertial reference frame. Any future event is therefore already determinate. I will show that this argument contains a fallacy, and present several replies to it. My conclusion is that the notion of time in STR does not necessarily imply the block universe view; rather, it gives rise to a new ontology that is more complex but nevertheless consistent. (shrink)

Orthodox physical models systematically exclude the conscious observer, treating subjective qualia as an emergent, accidental epiphenomenon of classical synaptic computation. To resolve the foundational crisis of physics and cognitive science, this report introduces the Complex-Extended Ontic Transfinite Prime Infinitesimal Holofractal Unified Field Theory (CO-TP-IHUFT). Serving as a special extension of the foundational C-TP-IHUFT physical framework, this expanded model explicitly factors in consciousness, elevating it to a primary structuring force of the cosmos. Aligning with the rigorous formatting and epistemological standards of (...) contemporary philosophy of science and Ontic Structural Realism (OSR), this report delivers an exhaustive mathematical synthesis that transitions classical metaphysical concepts into formal, testable languages. By adopting Abraham Robinson's nonstandard hyperreal number system, the framework redefines the physical point as an ontological, non-zero complex infinitesimal, functioning as the fundamental Leibnizian "monad" of qualia. The mathematical topology of this conscious spacetime is modeled via quantized fractal strings and Pellis-Fractal Information Theory, proving that the geometric vibrations of the vacuum follow the exact mathematical patterns of prime numbers and golden-ratio scaling. Furthermore, the framework defines the absolute point as an irreducible prime number, securing the monad of qualia against entropic decay. This report provides rigorous geometric derivations for the fundamental speed of light limit and mass-energy equivalence, framed through the mechanics of continuous fractional scaling over a discrete grid. Using the principles of Semantic Physics and Dual-Aspect Monism, Particle-Wave Duality is derived ontologically through the commutative equivalence of relational (wave) states and discrete (particle) values. Furthermore, the probabilistic nature of wave function collapse, defined by the Born rule, is formally derived not as an intrinsic axiom, but as an emergent semantic and statistical equilibrium resulting from subquantum chaotic mixing. The integration of Orchestrated Objective Reduction (Orch-OR) establishes consciousness as a fundamental quantum-gravitational force, where subjectivity is enabled through the isolation of prime-encoded 613 THz frequencies, and objectivity is sustained via the Bost-Connes quantum statistical error-correcting network. Advancing from the purely physical 11D C-TP-IHUFT Master Action Equation, the metaphysical framework is rigorously reformulated into the Full CO-TP-IHUFT Master Equation, proving the non-dual equivalence between the infinite, unmanifested Psychophysically Neutral Substrate, the 11D physical bulk, and the finite manifested microcosm of the localized epistemic observer. Operating through the ternary "And/Or" epsilon matrix, this establishes a complete, testable mathematical architecture for a self-computing, conscious holofractal universe. (shrink)

This article examines the phenomenon of atmosphere in the aesthetics of the German philosopher Gernot Böhme. It explores the connection between his ideas and those of Hermann Schmitz’s “New Phenomenology” and Martin Heidegger’s ontology. The atmosphere is analyzed through Schmitz’s concepts: the space of human corporeality, and the categories of “contraction” (Enge) and “expansion” (Weite)). Key points of Schmitz’s phenomenology are identified: the absolute space of the felt body, its independence from geometric space; the description of the body's (...) dynamics through bodily impulses and vectors of “contraction” (Enge) and “expansion” (Weite)); the critique of the internal arrangement of feelings; the understanding of feelings and atmospheres as external “forces.” Böhme illustrates illustrated this concepts using the example of the sublime atmosphere in the temple space. Through light and shadow, silence and lines, the atmosphere of the sublime is created. It captivates, astonishes, and directs human corporeality towards spaciousness, providing a perception of the dynamics of human corporeality. Böhme’s description of the atmosphere includes the problem of the subject perceiving the atmosphere. The phenomenon of atmosphere is understood based on the concepts of mood and disposition of a person, derived from Martin Heidegger’s concept of Dasein. Mood is revealed in two ways: as the attunement, the tonality of a person’s own place, and as the tonality of the places in which they reside. It is concluded that perceiving the atmosphere means perceiving the mutual attunement between a person and the world. The final point is the analysis of the concept of ecstasies in Böhme’s aesthetics. The transition from Schmitz’s concept of semi-things to the problem of ecstasies is shown. Ecstasies in Böhme’s aesthetics describe a special space where various qualities of things spread. The radiance of light, the filling of the space with color, the play of light and shadow, the weight of sound—these qualities create an atmosphere. The mood of the place is created by the manifestation of these things, their “resonance,” giving a special aesthetic to the space. It is concluded that the perception of atmosphere includes: the perception of the place of the living body, affected by the mood of the place; the perception of one’s own relationship to the place, the world, and oneself; the perception of how the place reveals its own resonance and mood through the ecstatic properties of things and their ability to fill the entire space. (shrink)

I aim to clarify the argument for space that Newton presents in De Gravitatione (composed prior to 1687) by putting Newton's remarks into conversation with the account of geometrical knowledge found in Proclus's Commentary on the First Book of Euclid's Elements (ca. 450). What I highlight is that both Newton and Proclus adopt an epistemic progression (or “order of knowing”) according to which geometrical knowledge necessarily precedes our knowledge of metaphysical truths concerning the ontological state of affairs. As I argue, (...) Newton's commitment to this order of knowing clarifies the interplay of the imagination and understanding in geometrical inquiry and illuminates how geometrical knowledge of space can lead to knowledge that space depends on and is related to God. In general, appreciating the Proclean elements of Newton's argument brings added light to the significance of geometrical inquiry for his general natural philosophical program and grants us insight into the philosophical grounding for the notion of absolute space that is presented in the Principia mathematica (1687). (shrink)

I present a discussion of some issues in the ontology of spacetime. After a characterisation of the controversies among relationists, substantivalists, eternalists, and presentists, I offer a new argument for rejecting presentism, the doctrine that only present objects exist. Then, I outline and defend a form of spacetime realism that I call event substantivalism. I propose an ontological theory for the emergence of spacetime from more basic entities. Finally, I argue that a relational theory of pre-geometric entities can (...) give rise to substantival spacetime in such a way that relationism and substantivalism are not necessarily opposed positions, but rather complementary. In an appendix I give axiomatic formulations of my ontological views. (shrink)

continent. 2.1 (2012): 29–35. Translated by Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei from Jeroen Mettes. "Politieke Poëzie: Enige aantekeningen, Poëtica bij N30 (versie 2006)." In Weerstandbeleid: Nieuwe kritiek . Amsterdam: De wereldbibliotheek, 2011. Published with permission of Uitgeverij Wereldbibliotheek, Amsterdam. L’égalité veut d’autres lois . —Eugène Pottier The modern poem does not have form but consistency (that is sensed), no content but a problem (that is developed). Consistency + problem = composition. The problem of modern poetry is capitalism. Capitalism—which has no (...) image: the unrepresentable Idea of “everything.” The problem is that a poem cannot be justified. There is no excuse for it. Political poetry— pure poetry—has to be problematic, though not in a mannerist way. Yes, its problem is first its own problem—poetry’s existence in the same world as the newspaper—but therefore also always everybody’s problem (the problem of any world at all). The cult of the sublime points at a suspect desire for transcendence, nostalgia for paradise lost (the womb?). Melancholia of the post-. But a problem neither sorrows nor mourns, it is alive, and the fact that it is alive is the problem—the problem for death (rigidity, the status quo). Our symbols and ideologies do not hide any god: symbolic = state; imaginary = human; real = money. Problem: the possibility of communal speech (poetry) in the absence of a “we.” Or: what is a “we” that is not a collective subject (or in any case is not a volonté générale )? What is a universal history that is not a History? This work was started in the shade of the anti-globalization protests at the end of November 1999. I considered N30 to be the closure of the nineties, of my adolescence, and of the a seemingly total extinction of social desire. From the beginning I was skeptical about the alterglobalization movement as the avant-garde of a new politics, but something was happening . Maybe this event did not show that, as the slogan would have it, “another world” is possible, but for me it indicated that such possibility was at least still possible. That naked possibility is carrying forward. And if the fundamental tone of this work sounds more desperate than utopian, this is not caused by the catastrophic sequence that since 1999 has plunged us ever deeper into the right-wing nightmare—a nightmare that this work also gives an account for—but because my hope as yet remains empty. Composition . Composition is no design, but the production of an autonomous block of affects (i.e. a POEM), rhythmically subtracted from the language of a community. A poem does something. Is something. New Sentence . Choosing the non sequitur as compositional unit has the advantage that an abstract composition is subjected to the stress of concrete, social references. Where there is a sentence, there is always a world. (This does not hold necessarily for words on their own.) And where sentences collide, something akin to a textual civil war takes place. It is not about “undermining” whatever, or de-scribing the raging global civil war, but about writing social (or even: ontological) antagonism -- including all its catastrophic and utopian possibilities. Minor resistance. Why would poetry be the no protest zone par excellence? It is nothing but protest, not simply qua “content,” but in its most fundamental essence: rhythm. Rhythm is resistance against language, time, and space, and the basis of (what we will continue to call) autonomy. Rhythm starts with the anti-rhythmic caesura as Hölderlin remarked about Sophocles, a disruption of the quotidian drone. The destruction of everything that is dead inside of us. The noise of the avant-garde has never been the representation of the noise of (post)modernity (from the television or shopping mall), but the sober noise of the systematic exchange of an unbearable worldview. The poet does not describe, but looks for a way out: There is a Grain of Sand in Lambeth that Satan cannot find Nor can his Watch Fiends find it, tis translucent & has many Angles But he who finds it will find Oothoons palace, for within Opening into Beulah every angle is a lovely heaven William Blake was not mad. And there has always been only one poetry: the poetry of paradise. The principle is that there is something in art (the essentially creative element) that is disgusted by that which, unlike art, does not aim for the supreme. Wonder is not supreme, tranquility is not supreme, beauty is not supreme. Even amusement is not supreme! The supreme is supremely open, “das Einfache,/ Das Schwer zu machen ist” 1 : paradise. That is abstract. Literally. For me it is not about a concrete imagination, an idyll or utopia. There is no doubt a need for that, but it is not so much the supposed lack of imagination or ideals (human rights are ideals), but a fundamental lack of desire (human rights are no desires) that we suffer from, and from which we do not need to remove Nietzsche’s label of “nihilism.” “We.” George Oppen: “ Of Being Numerous asks the question whether or not we can deal with humanity as something which actually exists.” What is less actual than humanity? Nowadays it appears as a lifeless ideology of cynical power politics. Or as what makes one think. It is a shame to be human. The event is the caesura that defines rhythm. Writing toward the event is not the description of the event, but marking an abstract and intense space in which the event may unfold and keep itself. It is a task. “Remember that thou blesseth the day on which I seized thee, because such is thy obligation.” The event is a contraction (or a series of contractions) with its own rhythm and unique qualities. It is more than an explosion or demonstration. But at the same time less. The endless repetition of images and stories in the media points to a fear for the indeterminate and indeterminable void of the event. In the end there is nothing to see. We do not live in disaster’s shade or miracle’s light, but rather in the rhythm, which is contracted time, having little to do with omnipresent representations. For this book I did not intend a rhythm of evental representations (a narrative rhythm), but a rhythm which would be an event itself , because it draws the border between artwork and history. My desire for a direct engagement with the “extra-textual reality” has nothing to do with the representation of “rumor in the streets.” (What has less street cred than representation?) Naturally, a poem is no historical event and does not change anything. But a poem is a part of history that wants to be repeated forever, constructed in such a way that it is worthy of repetition. It is a part of desire (composition) made consistent (durable). The “historical event” flares up and burns down, and has to burn down to be effective. The leftovers are images and stories (representations), History—no event. The artwork—that is the ambition— remains event (though monumental and inefficient/inoperable). (No wonder that a historical singularity, a revolution, reminds us of a work of art; the resurrection yearns for a judgment, an affirmation; everything depends on it.) Hence the title does not summarize the book, let alone contract its “content” into a quasi-transcendental signifier. The title is juxtaposed to the book, like everything else inside the book, and in that relation it precisely forms a part of it. The ideal work is an open whole, lacking nothing but to which everything may be added. I have been interested in this “everything,” the world, or as I said above: capitalism. “Everything” is not the space for “wonder”—a code word, a shibboleth for petty bourgeois imagination (I recognize myself in the strangest things, a speaking dog, a canal, a pond standing straight—oh my god). No. The world is a social world, not YOUR world, poet. Power is number one. I will call “Dutch,” or “shitty,” whatever denies this power. That hurts, but this pain is an expression of the desire in the world to write another world, or as Blanchot says, “the other of all worlds” 2 : the world. Not as what “is there,” but rather as that which urges for an escape from what “is.” This is a testament of how radical reality has become, for me—or rather, a writing body—in a having-been-written. I am not interested in the problem of “meaning” as misunderstood by literary scholarsi: “order” in “chaos,” “symbolization.” Bullshit. What is there, hop, hope, now: the meaning of the taste in my mouth. Bullshit. I am not interested in the frustration of interpretation; I am writing for readers who do not want to interpret. I do not know how many “professional readers” will hear the music of a paragraph like: Sun. Sushi. Volvo. I hope more than I would think. There is a suggestion (or rather, an actual production) of speed and infinitive owing to the absence of plosives, i.e. articulations such as /k/, /t/, or /p/. Can you hear the slick suaveness? Driving car dark, vocal chiaroscuro of the word “sushi.” The unstressed /i/ stands in the middle of dark vowels and thus acquires its own special out of focus , like a momentary flash or brilliance—an obscure light. It is not about recognizing a story, but about avoiding any story whatsoever: the car disappears in the glow, cars and raw fish have nothing in common except their articulation in a language that brings them together, blurring them. A world appears in its disappearance. For a moment, light is a metaphor for language, though it cannot be reduced to tenor. It is not necessary to be a linguist or philosopher to hear this—a “difficult” poem all too often becomes an allegory of its own impenetrable being-language. The only demand: leave your hermeneutical fetish at home. This was no interpretation. Most shit has been stolen etcetera. That is no longer interesting. You cannot shoot the body with information and let your lawyers reclaim the bullets. So every sentence has been stolen. Also the ones “out” “of” “my” “head.” Why would I be allowed to steal from myself and not from others? Man takes what he needs to move forward. Whatever he encounters, finds in front of him, “occurs” to him. The writer as text editor, or singing pirate. Nothing new here. Important difference with for example Sybren Polet’s 4 montage technique: anti-thematicism. Most of the time ferocious citation from whatever I was reading, listening to, ended up in, and so on. I wrote chapter 12 on my laptop while watching CNN. On the air instead of en plein air . I often employed search engines to generate material. Chapter 20 offers the purest example of this. Often I stop recognizing a particular citation after some time. It is not uncommon for a stolen sentence to conform itself to the paragraph in which it finds itself. Sometimes I nearly arbitrarily replace words. Arbitrariness as a guarantee for absolute democracy. It is a poetics of the non sequitur : a conclusion that does not follow from the premises, the strange element in the discourse. A discourse of strangers. No logical, narrative, thematic unity. There is unity in speed/flight. It has to be read linearly, but not necessarily (not preferably) from beginning to end. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line, but this line precedes every point. The middle, the acceleration, comes first. A point occurs where two lines cross. It has been written from up close, at the level of the tension between sentences. Nothing to be seen from a distance: no form except the exchange of form, no geometrical or mythical meaning. You have to get in, “groping toward a continuous present, a using everything a beginning again and again” (Stein). 5 In Dutch, experimental poetry has been mainly dense: a small rectangular form filled with a maximum amount of poetic possibility. But at the moment the poem starts to relax, the anecdotical content seems to increase. This is what is called “epic”: long, narrative. I believe that an epic is more than that, in fact something completely different. An epic is “a poem including history,” 6 a long poem tied up with the life of community, that as a whole does not need to be narrative. The American poets of the twentieth century (Pound, Williams, Zukofsky, Oppen, Olson, Silliman) have put the epic back on the map by interpreting the poem itself as a map, and writing it as navigation. They have invented the experimental epic, a genre that has generated little original following in “our” poetry. N30 is the middle part—“always start in the middle”—of a trilogy, the contours of which remain as of yet unclear, although each episode investigates one of the three “ecstasies of time”—past, present, future—concerning society X. N30 concerns itself with the PRESENT: not with the description of actual facts but of the rhythm and the intense depth in which facts appear to us. Where are we? We are camping in the desert. Sometimes we are looking at the stars. As opposed to maximum density and minimal tension (a characteristic of most (post-)experimental lyricism), I have sought a minimal density and maximum tension in this book, considered as a long non-narrative prose poem. On the one hand, the minimal density is obtained by the inherent formlessness of prose, on the other hand by the conscious refusal of any active (formal, non-rhythmic) synthesis: the poem tells nothing, shows nothing, has no theme. I did not seek maximum tension either by loading the quotidian with epiphanic radioactivity (“wonder,” confirmation from above), or by means of the intensity of the linguistic structure. I want an abstract tension, but social in its abstraction, in other words, not neutralized by and subjected to Form. Instead of form (transcendent): composition (immanent). The concept is series. Ideal: every unit is necessary for the efficacy of the others and the whole, their relation is purely linear, i.e. non-hierarchic, non-syllogistic, non-discursive, non-narrative. Sentence related to sentence like paragraph to paragraph and chapter to chapter; the whole means nothing and represents nothing. Inside the sentence: syntax (Chomsky’s tree, a type of parallel circuit), outside: parataxis (coordination, an asyntactic line through language and world). I consider duration—the energy of duration (rhythm)—to be the fundament of a poem, the temporal inclination to delimit a “space.” Being as consistency, its consistency. A spatial part of time is not merely a metaphor for an inevitable trajectory, an inescapable time, something like “our time.” Not merely—because rhythm comes from language and is not projected onto it; the poem derives from the world like a scent and a color and a life from a flower. A series, a sequence: nothing potential, but truly infinite—the movement of an infinitude. The infinite series = everything minus totality. That means that there is no container—no Form, no Self, no Image, no Structure, not even a Fragment—just “the prose of the world.” No representation, but also no staging of the impossibility of representation (the postmodern sublime). These are no fragments, no image of a fragmented world or personality, no cautious incantations around the Void. It does not exist. It is a movement. Buying bread, a flock of birds, a bomb falling—they do not depict or represent anything, not literally, not metaphorically. There is an Idea, which is however nothing more than a rhythm, in the same way that capitalism is nothing more than a pure function. Parataxis: the white space between two sentences stresses, which is nevertheless always there, also between words, even between letters: the out of focus of idle talk, the gutter, the irreducible Mallarméan mist which renders even the seemingly most transparent text legible. The white space suggests a neutral medium for free signification, a substance of language. A non sequitur is an element from a foreign discourse, which stresses the white space as space, and problematizes freedom for supra-sentential signification. I start by withdrawing material, leaving the initiative to the sentences. In general a word presupposes less often a discourse than a sentence. What discourse is presupposed by “dog”? We could think of several, but why would we? It is more probable that, when faced with the naked word, we think of its naked (dictionary) meaning, of its denotative signified. By means of two simple interventions we may also write the word as sentence: Dog. In no way this suggests the discourse from which this sentence originates, but in any case we’re presupposing one. This is shown by questions like: “Whose dog? Who’s a dog? What kind of dog?” Etc. (Sentences are question marks.) A sentence implies/is a microcosm—a subject, a verb, an object, and so on. Even an incomplete or ungrammatical sentence does so. My main fascination while writing this book is the worldly and social aspect of language, an aspect that often becomes invisible, or rather, transparent in narrativity—the stretching of sentences into stories. Narrativity organizes a new discourse and a new world, and places a sometimes all too dispersing relation of transparence in between. The conventional novel is the brothel of being. I do not intend to prohibit brothels, and I have certainly not intended to write an anti-novel (THIS IS A POEM), but I do consider narrativity (in general, in poetry, in the news, in daily life) to be ontologically secondary with regard to an immediate being in the world through sentences, also if the latter have been withdrawn from a narrative or otherwise externally structured discourse (which in that case would therefore be chronologically primary ). Naturally, two or more sentences are always in danger of telling stories or arguing, just like the world is always in danger of becoming an objective representation, facing us, strangers. That is why need to wage war—against representation and against the interface, against interaction. AGAINST THE “READER.” To the extent that a sentence is worldly, writing is a condensed global war, and in so far as there is ultimately only one world and one open continuum of languages, it is a global civil war. Nice subject for an epic. The elaboration of a singular problem—prose as the outside of poetry, the form of the novel as purely prosodic composition scheme—“expresses” the universal problem: capitalism as Idea of the world vs. poetry as language of an (im)possible community. The paragraphs are blocks of rhythmically contracted social material. By choosing the sentence as the basic compositional component, an abstract whole may contain social sounds, without telling a story or showing an image. Composition is subrepresentative —a rhythmic, passive synthesis, or rather: a synthesis of syntheses. I never write large blocks of prose in one sitting, because there is no obvious organizational vector —plot, theme, conscience—outside the inherent qualities of the material itself. Usually I write down one sentence, sometimes two, but rarely more than three. Those sentences are usually placed in the text which I am editing at the time. In fact, there is no original composition, new chapters split off from chapters which became too long during the editing process. (Revision mainly consists of adding and inserting, displacing and dividing; only during the last phase, when the text has gained enough consistency, there may be subtraction to tighten the composition; each chapter requires a season of daily revision). This constant revision, accompanied by a continuous influx of collective background noise (to speak with Van Bastelaere), 7 makes every chapter a block condensed (“historical” and “personal”) time. The block itself is a-personal and a-historic; it is ontologically autonomous. If there is such a thing as a spirit of the times, I do not try to offer an image of it, but rather to cancel something of it by erecting a monument of its own excrement within its own boundaries. Tuning and dis-tuning , “in de taal der neerslachtigen een eigen geluid doen klinken,” 8 in other words, desiring in an Elysian way. In this sense I have intended to be able to write a political poetry. The ultimate political poem is the epic, “the tale of the tribe.” I consider N30 to be a prolegomenon to a future epic (of which it in the end will form a part a structural moment, as introduction-in-the-middle), an extended pile on top of an epic as narrative, a question of the tribe and question of its history. I was burdened by too much satire, too much bullshit. But: satire willy-nilly = the only justifiable satire. Against the abstract universalism of the market (“globalism”): concrete disgust, a positive way of saying “No.” Moreover, disgust is a specifically total attitude, which ultimately concerns the world as a whole. I hate this or that, but I am disgusted by EVERYTHING (when I am disgusted), and so it appears that satire is in fact related to the epic, in so far as it concerns society, the cosmos, history. Maybe it is no coincidence that the Dutch literary canon knows no great poet of disgust; what could be more fearful to us than society, the cosmos, and history? The T-tendency (T from Tollens 9 ) clearly points into the direction of the small, friendly, ironic, melancholic, acquiescent, wondrous, and so on. The anti-political, anti-cosmic, anti-historical. (Why am I so philosophical? To scare away the Dutchies.) And most of all: the “poetical” (the pseudo-mysticism from the backyard). Yes, the N in N30 also stands for the Netherlands (just like 30 indicates the number of chapters). I was not in Seattle, I do not live in Iraq. But is not the whole world bleeding to death on Dutch paving stones? Let’s hope that we mowed away something with this total satire, also “in myself.” The arrogant stupidity that definitely thinks to know the essence of freedom (the free development of esthetic needs inside the void), that cannot take anything serious, only believes in the disciplined bestiality of the individual (“norms and values”) and the mere functioning of a social factory which finds no justification whatsoever outside its functioning (“get to work”)… Who knows. A certain aimed destruction leaves grooves and craters, mapping out a next adventure. Pound’s periplum : sailing while mapping the coasts. Immanent orientation. The terrain changes with the map, history changes with the poem. Maps never merely organize the chaos, transcendent schemes imposed on a formless Ding-an-sich . They organize from within, surfing. But they are most of all routes back into the chaos or forward to paradise (final identity of chaos and paradise; Schlegel: “ Nur diejenige Verworrenheit ist ein Chaos aus der eine Welt entspringen kann ”10). A poem is not only a piece of history, it is also a flight from history. Maps give chaos to the form of reality , open escape routes, break through representations, make us shivery and dazed. Paradise is immanent to a fleeting desire. History is the history of labor—this is Adam’s curse—and the poet works too: For to articulate sweet sounds together Is to work harder than all these, and yet Be thought an idler by the noisy set Of bankers, school masters, and clergymen The martyrs call the world 11 But: the poet works in paradise. The paradox of the artwork, the work that is no work, the piece of history that cannot be reduced to History—this is explained by The Space of Literature , a virtual space, an autonomous rhythm, not outside, but in the midst of the noise, a piece of paradise in hell, a postcard from the vale of tears addressed to paradise, to X. Political poetry means: a poetry that dares to think about itself, about its language and about its world and about the problematic relation between both, which is this relation as problem. A poetry that thinks at all, articulates its problem. It has nothing to do with journalism or morality or debate, let alone the law or the state. It has nothing to do with “criticism” if this means the replacement of incorrect representations by other, more correct representations. It has something to do with ethics in the sense of learning to live. It has something to do with the community and the language of the community (whichever that may be) and the role of the poet regarding the community. It concerns justice without judgement or measure. In the end the just word is just a word , to paraphrase Godard: it is from a future that is unimaginable. It Is no rational engagement, but an aversion against everything that obstructs life, and love for everything what is worthy of having been loved. The world is engaged with me, not the other way round. First Exodus, then Sinai. A desire does not start with an agenda. To answer the question whether I am really so naive as to want to change the world: “We only want the world.” Justice is the world appealing to us to liberate it from all possible chains, from each organization and inequality, to be it, smooth, equal, under a clear sky—a desert and a people in a desert. That moment between Egypt and the Law. It is not a revolution, but the sky above the revolution. Poetry = the science of escape. There is no art that we already know. The weakness of modernistic epic poetry seems to me to be the unwillingness to completely abandon narrative as a structural principle, in favor of a composition “around” or from an event. The China Cantos and Adams Cantos are the low point, and the Pisan Cantos the high point of Pound’s poetry. Two types of research: archival representation of the past vs. ontology of the present (which virtually presupposes the entire history). Presupposing an event means that it is impossible for the poet to stage his own absence, but in no way makes the work personal. An event is the unknown, the new invading into the business as usual, so also the personal. The question heading this research is not: “Who am I?” but “What is happening?” The book is as little illegible as Mondrian’s work is invisible. Form is of interest only to the extent that it empowers liberation. Ron Silliman So no formalism, but what it means to live in this world and to have a future in it. I want something that holds together that’s not smooth. Bruce Andrews The past above, the future below and the present pouring down: the roar, the roar of the present, a speech— William Carlos Williams If my confreres wanted to write a work with all history in its maw, I wished, from the beginning to start all over again, attempting to know nothing but a will to create, and matter at hand. Ronald Johnson NOTES 1) “The easy thing/ that is difficult to make.” Bertold Brecht, Lob des Kommunismus . (All footnotes are the translator’s) 2) Maurice Blanchot, The Space of Literature , trans. Ann Smock. Lincoln/London: University of Nebraska Press (1989), 75. 3) Mettes uses the word “Neerlandicus,” which refers to scholars of Dutch language and literature. 4) Dutch poet. 5) Gertrude Stein. “Composition as Explanation.” A Stein Reader . Ed. Ulla E. Dydo. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press (1993), 495-503. 6) Ezra Pound. 7) Flemish poet. 8) “Resounding an original sound in the language of the despondent.” A. Roland Holst, De afspraak . 9) Dutch poet. 10) “Only such a confusion is a chaos which can give rise to a world.” 11) W.B. Yeats, “Adam’s Curse.&rdquo. (shrink)

In this paper I explore how the discussion about the existence of laws in biology, more specifically laws about species taxa, bears on the issue of whether species are kinds or individuals. One of the main arguments offered in favor of the view that species are individuals is that it explains the lack of laws about species taxa, since laws cannot refer to individuals. My aim in this paper is to question the premise that there are no laws about species (...) axa and consequently to show that the proposed argument fails. I will argue that even if there are no strict scientific laws about species taxa, still, scientifically interesting, law-like generalizations are made which are used for explaining phenomena and predicting properties of species members. The existence of these law-like generalizations, in turn, suggests that species are, at least prima facie, best conceived of as kinds. (shrink)

A categorical ontology of space and time is presented for emergent biosystems, super-complex dynamics, evolution and human consciousness. Relational structures of organisms and the human mind are naturally represented in non-abelian categories and higher dimensional algebra. The ascent of man and other organisms through adaptation, evolution and social co-evolution is viewed in categorical terms as variable biogroupoid representations of evolving species. The unifying theme of local-to-global approaches to organismic development, evolution and human consciousness leads to novel patterns of relations (...) that emerge in super- and ultra- complex systems in terms of colimits of biogroupoids, and more generally, as compositions of local procedures to be defined in terms of locally Lie groupoids. Solutions to such local-to-global problems in highly complex systems with ‘broken symmetry’ may be found with the help of generalized van Kampen theorems in algebraic topology such as the Higher Homotopy van Kampen theorem (HHvKT). Primordial organism structures are predicted from the simplest metabolic-repair systems extended to self-replication through autocatalytic reactions. The intrinsic dynamic ‘asymmetry’ of genetic networks in organismic development and evolution is investigated in terms of categories of many-valued, Łukasiewicz–Moisil logic algebras and then compared with those obtained for (non-commutative) quantum logics. The claim is defended in this essay that human consciousness is unique and should be viewed as an ultra-complex, global process of processes. The emergence of consciousness and its existence seem dependent upon an extremely complex structural and functional unit with an asymmetric network topology and connectivities—the human brain—that developed through societal co-evolution, elaborate language/symbolic communication and ‘virtual’, higher dimensional, non-commutative processes involving separate space and time perceptions. Philosophical theories of the mind are approached from the theory of levels and ultra-complexity viewpoints which throw new light on previous representational hypotheses and proposed semantic models in cognitive science. Anticipatory systems and complex causality at the top levels of reality are also discussed in the context of the ontological theory of levels with its complex/entangled/intertwined ramifications in psychology, sociology and ecology. The presence of strange attractors in modern society dynamics gives rise to very serious concerns for the future of mankind and the continued persistence of a multi-stable biosphere. A paradigm shift towards non-commutative, or non-Abelian, theories of highly complex dynamics is suggested to unfold now in physics, mathematics, life and cognitive sciences, thus leading to the realizations of higher dimensional algebras in neurosciences and psychology, as well as in human genomics, bioinformatics and interactomics. (shrink)

In his Catoptrics, Hero of Alexandria infers the law of reflection of light from an original principle, the principle of the shortest path. This paper, after outlining the proof, aims at highlighting the novelty and fertility of Hero’s method. By accounting for the phenomena of light by means of a principle of extremality, Hero defines an approach very different from the one adopted e. g. by Ptolemy in his Optics; in some ways this is an anticipation of modern (...) geometrical optics, of which Hero appears as an unintentional forerunner. Outside the purely historical point of view, this paper emphasizes the epistemological significance of Hero’s principle and, generally speaking, of principles of extremality. These principles belong to a particular scientific tradition which is still alive: the tradition which favours final and formal causality over experimentalism and instrumentalism, and finally promotes mathematics to the rank of a basic ontological principle. From this point of view, Hero’s approach in his Catoptrics not only shows it as utterly modern, but could well be seen as one of the most emblematic ones. (shrink)

This paper develops a renewed ontological framework for field theories within the context of Identity Supersubstantivalism, the view that material objects are numerically identical to spacetime regions and that spacetime constitutes a plenum. Standard ontologies of fields—the Property View, the Stuff View, and the Substantial Entity View—are examined and shown to be inadequate, for different reasons, as fully articulated supersubstantivalist readings of field theories. In response, the paper proposes the Refined Property View of Field (RPVF), a renewed version of the (...) Property View that preserves the conception of fields as collections of properties while offering a more explicit account of the ontological status of the substance in which those properties inhere. According to RPVF, there exists a single spatiotemporal-material substance, internally structured into points that function as localized subjects of inherence for both geometric and material properties. Grounded in a classical substance–attribute framework, RPVF renders intelligible both the numerical identity between matter and spacetime and the plenitude thesis, while avoiding the metaphysical indeterminacies of the standard Property View. The result is a robust supersubstantivalist interpretation of classical field theories. (shrink)

Discussion of the issue of individuation in Avicenna’s philosophy seeks an answer to the question of how individuation can be explained ontologically in light of species-realization in individuals. The ontological aspect of individuation itself has two facets. One of them is what makes the individuals of a given species identical to themselves. The other pertains to what truly distinguishes the individuals of the species from each other. Just as answering for the self alone does not yield dissociation, the dissociation (...) of individuals does not answer the question about their selves. Prior to Avicenna, the explanation of individuals’ selfhood was interpreted in the context of Aristotle’s philosophy and discussions were conducted on whether it is matter or form that gives selfhood. The differentiation of individuals from each other was handled on the sensory plane through the field of properties. The main claim of this article is that Avicenna developed a unique approach with his theory of quiddity that encompasses both aspects of individuation. With this theory, Avicenna explains the self-identity of the individual with “the existence of quiddity-in-itself specific to that individual” and thus creates the necessary ground for a field of properties that will make it possible for the individual to be differentiated from other individuals of the species. The differentiation of individuals is answered through the field of properties that can be “pointed to” as a result of sensory perception. Among these features, position (waḍʿ) and place (ayn) come to the fore in terms of being considered primordial. In order to justify this claim, the theory of quiddity-in-itself, which underlies Avicenna’s original approach to the issue of individuation, and the structure of the properties that emerge depending on secondary dispositions (istiʿdād) will be revealed. In this way, it will be argued that quiddity-in-itself provides the substantial unity that will save the object from being a mass of properties, and that first position and place, and then other sensible properties give the distinctive individual structure on the basis of the idea of istiʿdād. In this way, the article will argue that Avicenna develops an integrated ontology of individuation in terms of quiddity and istiʿdād theories. (shrink)

The paper looks at the semantics and ontology of dispositions in the light of recent work on the subject. Objections to the simple conditionals apparently entailed by disposition statements are met by replacing them with so-called 'reduction sentences' and some implications of this are explored. The usual distinction between categorical and dispositional properties is criticised and the relation between dispositions and their bases examined. Applying this discussion to two typical cases leads to the conclusion that fragility is not (...) a real property and that, while both temperature and its bases are, this does not generate any problem of overdetermination. (shrink)

Mathematics embodies a complex universe of abstract concepts in human thought. However, the ontology of mathematical objects requires a deep analysis in order to understand not only the physical world, but also beyond the abstract world. This paper considers the fundamental qualities of mathematical objects and how we can use Aristotle's theory of substance to understand these entities. Aristotle's account of mathematical objects may be incomplete, but by using his understanding of substance, I aim to present my own assessment (...) in the most favourable light to Aristotle. Rather than being a direct assessment of Aristotle, this paper aims to explain my view as the most favourable possible. (shrink)

Streng considers the question of the ontology of silence in the light of work he has done on mysticism. In an earlier essay, he concluded that mystical language has both a descriptive and an evocative function. The evocative function is to "evoke a change in the attitudes and mechanisms of apprehension within the mystic adept." In this paper, he turns his attention to St. John of the Cross' Ascent of Mount Carmel and the dialogue in the Mahayana Buddhist (...) text The Eight-Thousand Line Perfection of Wisdom Sutra. After showing both important similarities and important differences between these two religicus paths, Streng develops some consequences for an ontology of silence. What follows is the concluding portion of Streng's paper. (shrink)

This chapter concentrates on Peter Olivi’s (ca. 1248–98) theory of the ontological foundations of political power—and, by extension, property and other social institutions. After briefly presenting his view of political power as a relation between a ruler and his subjects (which he presents in his famous Quid ponat ius), the chapter focuses more generally on Olivi’s theory of relations. Drawing from previous works by Alain Boureau, Sylvain Piron, Christian Rode, Robert Pasnau and others, it explores the ontology of relations (...) and endeavors to shed new light on this notoriously difficult aspect of Olivi’s philosophy. A special focus is placed on the non-Aristotelian notion of rationes reales, which Olivi uses to make room between realism and nominalism, as he argues that power relations are real (i.e. they are not mind-dependent) although they are not based on any real properties in the relata. After showing that political power and other institutional facts must be understood in light of this peculiar ontological notion, the final section of the essay argues that the freedom of the human will entails an ability to change social reality. It is also suggested that despite this rather modern aspect of Olivi’s his social ontology, he remains firmly within medieval worldview by grounding the normative aspect of social institutions in the will of God. (shrink)

The recent scientific discoveries cast a new light on the classical distinction between the actual and the possible. A creative elaboration upon this theme, stimulated by works on modal logic and controversies around the semantics of Kripke, has been developed in contemporary discussions on epistemological aspects of quantum cosmology and on ontological preconditions of genetic determinants.Proceeding from new scientific theories, in the paper an attempt is undertaken to determine the ontological structure of nature in which one satisfactorily explains new (...) data implied by these theories. In the context of contemporary physical discoveries the very concept of possible being is reinterpreted. A new version of moderate Platonism is proposed in a form of modified modal actualism. Its classical counterpart was earlier developed by Robert C. Stalnaker and Alvin Plantinga in their ontology of the possible worlds. (shrink)

This paper argues that Claude Shannon's mathematical theory of information, while a foundational achievement of the twentieth century, rests on a philosophical assumption that has become untenable in light of recent empirical results: that information is exclusively a property of present signals, and that absent data is simply lost. Drawing on experimental findings from the CPA v4 protocol — in which language models recover semantic content from texts with up to 50% of tokens systematically deleted — we argue that (...) what is conventionally treated as 'noise' or 'loss' is in fact a structured residue: the Semantic Trace. This trace is not metaphor; it is a measurable, reproducible, structurally organized remainder that enables reconstruction beyond what Shannon's redundancy model can explain. We develop this claim through four moves: (i) a philosophical critique of the signal/noise binary inherited from classical information theory; (ii) a phenomenological account of the Trace as an ontological category distinct from both presence and absence; (iii) a new theoretical construct — the Reconstruction Threshold (δ*) — as an empirical signature of the boundary between trace-mediated coherence and genuine semantic dissolution; and (iv) a methodological proposal for a trace-sensitive epistemology that has direct implications for the architecture of future computational systems. Our argument is not anti-Shannon but post-Shannonian: the Master's framework is sufficient for channel engineering; it is insufficient for semantic physics. (shrink)

The conventional interpretation of the Hubble effect as a Doppler effect, based upon the concept of an expanding universe or based upon the idea of a continuously increasing radius of curvature of space, leads to some difficulties. It seems possible to avoid these difficulties by ascribing the redshift of light coming from remote galaxies to the fact that the non-Euclidean structure of the universe gets more and more important as observation extends to regions extremely distant from the point of (...) observation. Hubble's phenomenon thus seems based upon the structure of space and time as judged from the point of observation; this means that it appears as a consequence of the “geometria intrinsica” of the universe. (shrink)

This paper (VII_003) establishes the physical ontology of mass and Higgs field condensation within an emergent quantum information framework. We demonstrate that rest mass is not an intrinsic, fundamental scalar attribute, but rather the topological information damping exerted by the Higgs condensation field upon geometric perturbation. Reinterpreting the Higgs Vacuum Expectation Value (v ≈ 246 GeV) as the baseline information capacity noise floor of the phase-locked quantum network, and Yukawa couplings (yf) as information exchange frequency factors, this work (...) provides an ontological, background-independent foundation for the particle mass generation mechanism without invoking ad-hoc scalar field postulates. (shrink)

This study presents a new type of foundational model unifying quantum theory, relativity theory and gravitational physics, with a novel cosmology. It proposes a six-dimensional geometric manifold as the foundational ontology for our universe. The theoretical unification is simple and powerful, and there are a number of novel empirical predictions and theoretical reductions that are strikingly accurate. It subsequently addresses a variety of current anomalies in physics. It shows how incomplete modern physics is by giving an example of (...) a theory that is genuinely unified. In doing this, it radically alters the metaphysical interpretation of the nature of time, space and matter currently interpreted from modern physics. It also profoundly challenges materialist expectations about a naturalistic account our own existence. I contend here that there is sufficient evidence to support this theory as a leading paradigm for a unified foundational theory. (shrink)

[Version presented in May 2026 at CUNY GC Logic and Metaphysics Workshop, latest version of the project "A model of the ontology of time", initial 2023 draft on Philpapers: CLBAMO-2] -/- How little ontology is needed to accommodate the major logical and metaphysical theories of time? I present a first-order framework whose primitive structure consists of moments, events, a temporal order, start and end functions, tense traces, and minimal change and reality flags. Optional geometric schemas are available (...) for Newtonian, branching, relativistic, and fragmentary time. I argue that the axioms are independently motivated and systematically variable and that canonical positions in temporal metaphysics (presentism, growing-block theory, moving-spotlight theory, eternalism, and fragmentalism) can be recovered as parameter settings or schema extensions of the neutral core. I then prove a representation theorem for Prior’s PF and indicate extensions to metric and interval temporal logics. The framework thereby compares the metaphysical costs of temporal ontologies. Conditional on preserving global reality and substantial temporal passage, growing-block theory emerges as the most parsimonious A-theoretic ontology, while Fine-style fragmentalism divides into two non-equivalent variants, depending on whether fragments are understood as tense-coherent histories or as spacetime regions. (shrink)

With the publication of The Use of Bodies (2016) Agamben's multi-volume Homo Sacer project has come to an end, or to paraphrase Agamben, has been abandoned. We now have a new vantage point from which to reread Agamben's corpus; not only his method but his political and philosophical thought can been seen in a clearer light. This timely book both assesses and contributes to the debates on the Homo Sacer project in its entirety. Rethinking the notions of life and (...) power - two of the central themes in Agamben's work - through a reconstruction of his philosophical method and the examination of his critique of Western metaphysics, this book argues that Agamben's thought cannot be fully grasped if we do not account for the intertwining of politics and ontology. This book argues that it is only by revisiting Agamben's critique of signification and metaphysics and examining his reconstruction of the archaeological method that we can understand his notions of life and power. By bringing together the two parts of the Homo Sacer project, the archaeology of the signature of Sovereignty and the archaeology of governmentality, this book provides an analysis of the production of Agambenian 'bare life'. In this sense this project re-articulates Agamben's works on signification, language and ontology with his archaeology of power. Offering an original examination of Agamben's notion of resistance, this is essential reading for any thoughtful consideration of his philosophical legacy. (shrink)

This article develops a structural–analogical framework to investigate conceptual resonances between Qur’an 24:35—the Verse of Light—and contemporary relational models in physics, while maintaining firm epistemic boundaries between theology, philosophy, and empirical science. The Qur’anic metaphors of niche, glass, tree, oil, and layered light depict a graded ontology of manifestation in which being unfolds through ordered relations grounded in a transcendent divine command (amr). By contrast, modern physics—as represented by quantum field theory, loop quantum gravity, and cosmological models—operates (...) entirely within immanent causality, conceiving spacetime and matter as relational, dynamic, and structurally emergent. Despite their distinct registers, both discourses converge structurally around a shared grammar of potentiality, relation, and manifestation. Drawing on classical Islamic metaphysics—especially al-Ghazālī’s Mishkāt al-Anwār—alongside contemporary relational ontologies in physics (Smolin, Rovelli, Markopoulou), the article argues that “real time” functions as an ontological choice that conditions intelligibility, agency, and novelty. The Qur’anic notion of nūr is interpreted not as physical luminosity but as the metaphysical ground of determinability, while the quantum vacuum is treated as a field of latent potential—without suggesting empirical equivalence. Rather than concordism, the comparison highlights a structural resonance (used here as a heuristic notion indicating pattern-level affinity rather than equivalence, correspondence, or empirical verification): both traditions affirm that reality is neither static nor substance-based, but arises through dynamic relational processes grounded—whether transcendently or immanently—in principled order. (shrink)

Praxis is the identifying signature of the most prevalent contemporary versions of the reception and interpretation of Marx and of the movements of thought inspired or provoked by him. This view seems to accord well with the early “Theses on Feuerbach” and is frequently mobilized in support of the further claim that the “mature” or “scientific” Marx, the Marx of Das Kapital, above all had left behind his former preoccupations with philosophy in anything like a traditional sense, in order to (...) pursue single-mindedly and whole-heartedly his critical diagnosis of bourgeois political economy, the opening wedge in his “practical” campaign to establish first socialism and then communism. In this essay, I want to call into question some of the central commitments of this consensus. In particular, I shall suggest that Marx’s understanding of praxis, of human activity and interaction, is pervasively shaped by his conception of poiesis, the production of hitherto non-existing objects and, therewith, the ongoing transformation of external Nature. Accordingly, appreciations of Marx’s supposedly revolutionary transfiguration of the relation between theoria and praxis need to be recast and reconstrued in light of his reduction of praxis to technical production. Poiesis is the cardinal, indeed the unique, category in the ontological vocabulary Marx adopted in his earliest works and never abandoned afterwards, even when he went on to treat ontological issues much more economically. This monochromatic vocabulary so colored Marx’s analysis of the nature and civic places of labor and human interrelations, that both tended to lose the variegated contours by which pre-modern, if not all pre-Marxist, thinkers recognized them. Marx’s elliptical, not to say sibylline, allusions to the condition and the telos of “socialized humanity” in the Grundrisse and in the final volume of Das Kapital prove so perplexing exactly because ‘labor’ itself has become paradoxical—does it figure with equal prominence in both the ‘realm of necessity’ and the ‘realm of freedom’?—while praxis, once it seems finally set free from the spell cast on it by the presumptive ultimacy of poiesis, appears to lose its bearings, its pre-modern orientation to a goal such as achieved and mutually-acknowledged human excellence. The claims and promises of praxis turn out to be deeply enigmatic. (shrink)

We use a new, distinctly “geometrical” interpretation of non-relativistic quantum mechanics (NRQM) to argue for the fundamentality of the 4D blockworld ontology. We argue for a geometrical interpretation whose fundamental ontology is one of spacetime relations as opposed to constructive entities whose time-dependent behavior is governed by dynamical laws. Our view rests on two formal results: Kaiser (1981 & 1990), Bohr & Ulfbeck (1995) and Anandan, (2003) showed independently that the Heisenberg commutation relations of NRQM follow from the (...) relativity of simultaneity (RoS) per the Poincaré Lie algebra. And, Bohr, Ulfbeck & Mottelson (2004a & 2004b) showed that the density matrix for a particular NRQM experimental outcome may be obtained from the spacetime symmetry group of the experimental configuration. This shows how the blockworld view is not only consistent with NRQM, not only an implication of our geometrical interpretation of NRQM, but it is necessary in a non-trivial way for explaining quantum interference and “non-locality” from the spacetime perspective. Together the formal results imply that contrary to accepted wisdom, NRQM, the measurement problem and so-called quantum non-locality do not provide reasons to abandon the 4D blockworld implication of RoS. But rather, the deep non-commutative structure of the quantum and the deep structure of spacetime as given by the Minkowski interpretation of special relativity (STR) are deeply unified in a 4D spacetime regime that lies between Galilean spacetime (G4) and Minkowski spacetime (M4). Taken together the aforementioned formal results allow us to model NRQM phenomena such as interference without the need for realism about 3N Hilbert space, establishing that the world is really 4D and that configuration space is nothing more than a calculational device. Our new geometrical interpretation of NRQM provides a geometric account of quantum entanglement and so-called non-locality free of conflict with STR and free of interpretative mystery. In section 2 we discuss the various tensions between STR and NRQM with respect to the dimensionality of the world. Section 3 is devoted to an explication of the Kaiser et al. results and their philosophical implications. Likewise, the Bohr et al. results and their implications are the subject of section 4. In section 5, we present our geometric interpretation of quantum entanglement and “non-locality.”. (shrink)

As shown by neuroscientific evidence, neglect may occur without elementary sensorimotor impairments. The deficit is to be found at a higher, more abstract level of representation, which prevents the patient not only from seeing, but from conceiving the contralesional space. By analysing a series of neuropsychological results, in this paper we suggest a crucial role of time for the construction of a world: on this basis, we try to explain how it is possible that half the ontology gets lost. (...) The analysis of the ontological implication of neglect will allow us to shed light on manifestations of the pathology apparently disconnected. (shrink)

THERE would appear to be no philosophical consensus about the nature of human action, even though discussion of that ancient topic has intensified in the last two decades. I shall nevertheless ask the reader to suppose that the question has at last been settled in its main lines, and settled in a way I shall describe in a moment. The supposition I have in mind is no light matter. The universe it envisions is radically different from what it would (...) be if some other supposition were in its place. A detailed justification of it would require a thoroughgoing reassessment of many of the notions about causality that have prevailed in this century. Though I have offered something of that kind in earlier writings, the most I can hope to do here is to state the supposition in as brief, vivid, and concrete a way as I can manage. After that I shall ask what view of the rational agent it leads us to. No matter how action itself is interpreted, common sense attributes action to an agent. If the actions are those that take place in an atmosphere of rational discourse, it is natural to think of the agent as a rational one. Do we have any right to make this attribution in any way more exacting than that of common sense? Precisely what ontological status does the rational agent have? What, in particular, are we to make of its self-identity, seeing that some actions seem to modify the self-identity in which in a prima facie sense they originate? (shrink)

It is here argued that 'culture' is a universal in the philosophical sense of the term: it expresses a general property. It is not a singular term naming an abstract entity, but rather a singular predicate the intension of which is 'cultureness.' Popper's view of the ontology of mathematics is used as an analogous example in the light of which the ontology of culture is analyzed. Cultures do not have an independent existence, they are not mere names, (...) and neither do they exist as fixed entities in the mind. Cultures are abstractions made by the mind, which yet are not reducible to the mind. They exist in the form of certain mental operations creating a new level of reality. Scientific study of culture involves both explaining how cultural phenomena are constructed in minds and how these constructions function in cognition and communication. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is two-fold: first, to emphasize causality in disease ontology and knowledge representation, presenting a general and cursory discussion of causality and causal chains; and second, to clarify and develop the River Flow Model of Diseases (RFM). The RFM is an ontological account of disease, representing the causal structure of pathology. It applies general knowledge of causality using the concept of causal chains. The river analogy of disease is explained, formal descriptions are offered, and the (...) RFM disease definition is refined by describing causal chains in terms of causal relations. The definition is updated to coincide with the actual RFM classes found in its upper-level ontology, YAMATO, which brings to light some challenges in developing both YAMATO and the RFM. The RFM is also discussed in relation to another ontological account of disease. Strategies are offered toward interoperability between these theories. (shrink)

Trust has stood out more than ever in light of recent innovations. Some examples are advances in artificial intelligence (AI) that make machines increasingly humanlike, and the introduction of decentralized technologies (e.g., blockchains), which create new forms of (decentralized) trust. These new developments have the potential to improve the provision of products and services, as well as to contribute to individual and collective well-being. However, their adoption depends largely on trust. To build trustworthy systems, along with defining laws, regulations, (...) and proper governance models for new forms of trust, it is necessary to properly conceptualize trust, so that it can be understood both by humans and machines. This paper is the culmination of a long-term research program of providing a solid ontological foundation on trust, by creating reference conceptual models to support information modeling, automated reasoning, information integration, and semantic interoperability tasks. To address this, a Reference Ontology of Trust (ONTrust) was developed, grounded on the Unified Foundational Ontology and specified in OntoUML, which has been applied in several initiatives, demonstrating its use for conceptual modeling and enterprise architecture design, for language evaluation and (re)design, for trust management, for requirements engineering, and for trustworthy AI in the context of affective human–AI teaming. ONTrust formally characterizes the concept of trust and its different types, describes the different factors that can influence trust, and explains how risk emerges from trust relations. To illustrate its use, the ontology is applied to model two case studies extracted from the literature. (shrink)

We argue that probability theory, in its canonical formulation, suffers from a pathol- ogy we term epistemic presentism: the systematic erasure of evidential history through normalization. This is not a technical limitation but an ontological mistake— mistaking the shadow for the substance, the map for the territory, the amnesia for the truth. Drawing on contact geometry, we demonstrate that probability distributions are exiled fragments of richer dynamical objects whose memory has been surgically removed. Evidence is not accumulated but integrated—not summed (...) algebraically but woven geometrically along paths through belief space. The curvature of these paths is not mathematical decoration but the scar tissue of irreversibility, the trace that learning leaves on the manifold of the possible. We resolve long-standing puzzles in confirmation theory, the problem of old evidence, and scientific underdetermination by recognizing that probability encodes conclusions while geometry encodes justi- fication. The implications extend to the nature of information, the arrow of epistemic time, and the thermodynamic soul of inference. Probability theory has been operating in Plato’s Cave, studying shadows while the sun of contact geometry blazed unseen above. (shrink)