339 research outputs found
âThe Horizon of Everything Human âŠâ
An English translation of Leibniz's fragment "Horizon rerum humanarum... " in which he announces a plan to demonstrate "that the number of truths or falsehoods enunciable by humans as they are now is limited; and also that if the present condition of humanity persisted long enough, it would happen that the greatest part of what they would communicate in words, whether by talking or writing, would have to coincide with what others have already communicated in the past; and moreover that new humans would lead an entire life that appears thoroughly the same to the senses as lives that others have already led.
Leibniz on Intellectual Pleasure, Perception of Perfection, and Power
Leibniz is unclear about the nature of pleasure. In some texts, he describes pleasure as a perception of perfection, while in other texts he describes pleasure as being caused by a perception of perfection. In this article, I disambiguate two senses of âperception of perfectionâ, which clarifies Leibnizâs considered position. I argue that pleasure is a perception of
an increase in a substanceâs power which is caused by a substanceâs knowledge of a perfection of the universe or God. This reading helps clarify the nature of Leibnizian happiness. Happiness is a cognitive process (akin to a mood), constituted fundamentally out of pleasure, which is grounded in increases in a substanceâs power. A rational substance will sustain its
happiness so long as it is more powerful than it is weak, and it is engaging in activities that increase its power
A inteligĂȘncia dos Futuros Contingentes: Interrogando G. W. Leibniz sobre Deus e a Verdade
Leibnizian, Robinsonian, and Boolean Valued Monads
This is an overview of the present-day versions of monadology with some
applications to vector lattices and linear inequalities.Comment: This is a talk prepared for the 20th St. Petersburg Summer Meeting in
Mathematical Analysis, June 24-29, 201
Total Degree Formula for the Generic Offset to a Parametric Surface
We provide a resultant-based formula for the total degree w.r.t. the spatial
variables of the generic offset to a parametric surface. The parametrization of
the surface is not assumed to be proper.Comment: Preprint of an article to be published at the International Journal
of Algebra and Computation, World Scientific Publishing,
DOI:10.1142/S021819671100680
Relational interpretation of the wave function and a possible way around Bell's theorem
The famous ``spooky action at a distance'' in the EPR-szenario is shown to be
a local interaction, once entanglement is interpreted as a kind of ``nearest
neighbor'' relation among quantum systems. Furthermore, the wave function
itself is interpreted as encoding the ``nearest neighbor'' relations between a
quantum system and spatial points. This interpretation becomes natural, if we
view space and distance in terms of relations among spatial points. Therefore,
``position'' becomes a purely relational concept. This relational picture leads
to a new perspective onto the quantum mechanical formalism, where many of the
``weird'' aspects, like the particle-wave duality, the non-locality of
entanglement, or the ``mystery'' of the double-slit experiment, disappear.
Furthermore, this picture cirumvents the restrictions set by Bell's
inequalities, i.e., a possible (realistic) hidden variable theory based on
these concepts can be local and at the same time reproduce the results of
quantum mechanics.Comment: Accepted for publication in "International Journal of Theoretical
Physics
Ars experimentandi et conjectandi. Laws of Nature, Material Objects, and Contingent Circumstances
The fables of pity: Rousseau, Mandeville and the animal-fable
Copyright @ 2012 Edinburgh University PressPrompted by Derridaâs work on the animal-fable in eighteenth-century debates about political power, this article examines the role played by the fiction of the animal in thinking of pity as either a natural virtue (in Rousseauâs Second Discourse) or as a natural passion (in Mandevilleâs The Fable of the Bees). The war of fables between Rousseau and Mandeville â and their hostile reception by Samuel Johnson and Adam Smith â reinforce that the animal-fable illustrates not so much the proper of man as the possibilities and limitations of a moral philosophy that is unable to address the political realities of the state
Ten Misconceptions from the History of Analysis and Their Debunking
The widespread idea that infinitesimals were "eliminated" by the "great
triumvirate" of Cantor, Dedekind, and Weierstrass is refuted by an
uninterrupted chain of work on infinitesimal-enriched number systems. The
elimination claim is an oversimplification created by triumvirate followers,
who tend to view the history of analysis as a pre-ordained march toward the
radiant future of Weierstrassian epsilontics. In the present text, we document
distortions of the history of analysis stemming from the triumvirate ideology
of ontological minimalism, which identified the continuum with a single number
system. Such anachronistic distortions characterize the received interpretation
of Stevin, Leibniz, d'Alembert, Cauchy, and others.Comment: 46 pages, 4 figures; Foundations of Science (2012). arXiv admin note:
text overlap with arXiv:1108.2885 and arXiv:1110.545
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