Philosophy in Reality: A New Book of Changes 303062756X, 9783030627560

Table of contents :
Foreword by Lorenzo Magnani
Preface
Acknowledgements
Contents
Part ITheory and Science
1 Introduction
1.1 The ‘Science’ of Philosophy
1.2 Reality: Process, Logic, Philosophy and Change
1.3 The Limitations of Propositional Logic
1.4 Logic and Philosophy in Reality: A New ‘Book of Changes’
1.5 The Nature and Role of Energy
1.5.1 Intensity and Extensity
1.5.2 Identity and Diversity
1.5.3 Actuality and Potentiality
1.6 Outline of the Book
1.6.1 Part I Theory and Science
1.6.2 Part II Toward a New Natural Philosophy
1.6.3 Part III the Philosophy of Structures and Systems
References
2 Change in Reality: The I Ching
2.1 Change in Reality
2.2 The Chinese Book of Changes (I Ching)
2.3 Main Principles in the I Ching
2.4 Classical Chinese Logic
2.4.1 Classical Chinese Logic and Aristotle
2.5 The Chinese Philosophy of Change and LIR
2.6 Western Sources. The Tao of Physics
2.7 Jullien’s “Way of Thought”
2.8 East–West Studies
2.9 A World Without Change
2.10 Chuang Tzü and the Logic of Energy
2.11 Further Aspects of Chinese Philosophy and Logic
2.11.1 Harmony
2.11.2 The Logic of Tao Philosophy
2.12 Other Chinese and Eastern Traditions
References
3 Logic in Reality
3.1 Introduction. Logic and Logical Philosophy
3.2 A Logic of Change
3.3 Logic in Reality: Actuality, Potentiality and Emergence
3.3.1 The Grounding in Physics
3.3.2 The Res Potentiae of Heisenberg
3.3.3 Probability
3.4 Implication and Deduction in LIR
3.4.1 Implication as Process. Dialectics
3.4.2 Ortho-deductions and Para-deductions
3.4.3 On Truth and the Absence of Proof in Logic in Reality
3.4.4 First (Predicate)- and Second-Order Logics
3.5 Logic in Reality ‘In Operation’
3.5.1 Classification and Properties of Operators
3.5.2 Operators in Language and Causality
3.6 Precursors of Lupasco
3.6.1 Kant and Hegel
3.6.2 Husserl and Heidegger
3.6.3 Philosophers of Process
3.6.4 Gotthard Günther: Transcendental Logic and Trans-classical Rationality
3.6.5 Gaston Bachelard
3.7 Recent Developments in Logic
3.7.1 Paraconsistent Logic
3.7.2 Paracomplete Logic
3.7.3 Quantum Logics
3.7.4 Abduction and Abductive Logic
3.7.5 Dialogical Logic
3.8 Toward a Non-Boolean Logic
3.9 Logical Realism versus Natural Realism and Natural Philosophy
3.10 The Scope of Logic in Reality: Structural Principles and Attitudes
3.10.1 World Logic Day
References
4 Change and Logic
4.1 Change in Modern Western Science and Philosophy
4.2 Chance and Change
4.2.1 Contingency Versus Determinism
4.2.2 The Weak Pinsker Conjecture
4.3 Continuity and Discontinuity
4.3.1 A Summary Statement of the LIR View
4.3.2 The Continuum Hypothesis
4.3.3 The Further Problem of Differential Calculus
4.4 General Theories of Change
4.4.1 Epistemic Change and Epistemic Logic
4.4.2 The Boundaries of Epistemic Change
4.4.3 Emergence and Emergent Change. Life and Autopoesis
4.5 Analyticity. The Unchanging Character of Analytical Philosophy
4.6 Change in Our Time. The Economics and Politics of Change
4.7 Interim Conclusions: Change in Reality
4.7.1 Self-duality
References
5 Dialectics in Reality
5.1 Introduction. We and the Universe
5.1.1 The Dialectical Methodology of Logic in Reality
5.2 The Dialectics of Energy
5.2.1 Catastrophe Theory
5.2.2 The Emergent Materialism of Hofkirchner
5.2.3 Life and Immanence
5.3 The Scope of Dialectics in Lupasco
5.4 Dialectics in Ancient Greece
5.4.1 Parmenides, Plato and Anaxagoras: The Dialectical Discourse of Being in Its Existing Multiplicity
5.4.2 Heraclitus: Energy, Dynamic Oppositions, and Self-Growing Logos
5.4.3 Dialectical Discourse in Atomism
5.4.4 Aristotle and the Dialectics of Potentiality and Actuality
5.5 Dialectics in European Philosophy
5.5.1 Spinoza, Leibniz and Kant
5.5.2 The Process Philosophy of Schelling and His Followers
5.5.3 Hegel’s Dialectics
5.5.4 Marxist Dialectics
5.6 Post-Marxist Dialectics
5.6.1 Mamardashvili: Dialectics of Social Consciousness
5.6.2 Dialectics in Ilyenkov’s Conception and Beyond
5.6.3 Ilyenkov and Dubrovsky. Information and Consciousness
5.6.4 The Dialectical Concepts of Wu Kun
5.6.5 Other Trends in Post-Marxist Dialectics
5.7 Conclusion
References
6 Physics: External Reality—Time, Space and the Observer
6.1 Introduction. Quantum and Classical Mechanics: Non-linearity, Downward Causation, and General Operative Principles in Nature
6.2 Time
6.3 Space
6.4 Simultaneity and Succession. Movement
6.5 Time in Philosophy
6.5.1 Time in Phenomenology
6.5.2 Derrida and the Complexification of Time
6.6 Space–Time in General Relativity
6.6.1 The Dual Role of the Metric Field
6.6.2 Self-duality
6.7 Relationality and the Frame of Reference in Physics
6.8 Substance and Movement in Reality: A Brief Philosophical Overview
6.9 The Intelligible (“Learnt”) Reality of Mathematics and the Actual (“Objectively External”) Reality of Physics
6.9.1 Time and LIR as a Theory of Change
6.10 The Fundamental Problem of the Origin of the Universe (Big Bang) in Reality
6.11 The Question of the Speed of Light
6.12 Relationality in Quantum Mechanics and Apparent Reality
6.13 Potentiality and Quantum Measurement: The Transactional Interpretation
6.13.1 Propensiton Quantum Theory
6.13.2 Transactional Substantiation of Fundamental Constants
6.14 Transactional Substantiation of Life and Consciousness
References
7 Mathematics in Reality
7.1 Introduction: Mathematics and Reality
7.2 The Generation of Noumena from Potentiality for Defining Phenomenal Reality
7.3 The Noumenal Reality of Mathematics and Its Historical Relation to Natural Language
7.4 The Relation of the Mathematical and the Physical Worlds
7.4.1 The P Versus NP Problem in Computer Science
7.5 The Pythagorean Idea of Number in the Foundations of Mathematics
7.5.1 Number as Substance
7.5.2 Phenomenological Feasibility of Pythagoreanism
7.6 The Operational Interpretation of Mathematics: From Marx to Twentieth Century Concepts
7.6.1 The Operational Essence of the Axiom of Choice
7.7 Mathematics in Reality: Overcoming the Pythagorean Paradigm in the Twentieth Century
7.7.1 Three Programs of Foundations of Mathematics in the Early Twentieth Century
7.7.2 Mathematical Continuum and Mathematical Forcing
7.7.3 Topoi and the Foundations of Mathematics in Reality
7.7.4 Qualitative Equations
7.8 Using Univalent Foundations of Mathematics to Place Mathematics in Reality
7.9 The Problem of the Origin of Computation
7.10 Logic in Reality and the Foundations of Mathematics
7.10.1 The Complex Plane: Initial Considerations
7.10.2 Initial Complexification of Our Representation
7.10.3 Second Complexification. Identity and Diversity
7.11 Concluding Remarks
References
8 Chemistry: Modeling Activation and Transition
8.1 The Included Third—T-state
8.2 Chemistry or Chemical System?
8.3 The Philosophy of Chemistry. Hylé
8.4 The Transition State
8.5 Toward a New Chemistry
8.5.1 Entropy and Negentropy
8.6 The Chemistry of Life
8.7 Distinguishability: The Same and Not the Same
8.7.1 Asymmetry and Interaction
8.7.2 Some Examples from Cognition
8.8 Chemistry in Human Beings. Obesity
8.9 Why Physicalism is not Reductionist
References
Part IIToward a New Natural Philosophy
9 Semiotics and Semiosis: The Units and Dialectics of Meaning
9.1 Introduction: Language, Logic and Meaning
9.1.1 Meaning and the Absurd
9.1.2 Meaning and Free Will
9.2 Toward an LIR Theory of Meaning
9.3 Non-meaning
9.4 The Logical Philosophy of Peirce
9.5 Toward a Philosophy of Semiotics as Process
9.5.1 Signs, Representation and Semiosis
9.5.2 Semiotics and Representation
9.6 Semiotics and Semiosis
9.6.1 The Semiotics of Peirce
9.6.2 On Signs and Meaning in Peirce. The Pragmatic Maxim
9.6.3 The Search for the Meaning of the Sign
9.7 The Semiotics and Semiosis of Paradoxes
9.8 The Units of Knowledge and Existence
9.8.1 The Phanerons of Peirce
9.8.2 Epistemons and/or Ontolons?
9.8.3 Ontolons in Relation to Other Units
9.9 Gödel and Incompleteness
References
10 Three Major Domains in Philosophy: Metaphysics, Metaphilosophy and Phenomenology
10.1 Introduction. Is Metaphysics Possible?
10.1.1 From Dichotomies to Processes
10.1.2 Every Thing Must Go
10.1.3 The Basis of a Relational Philosophy of Science
10.1.4 The Nature and Role of Information
10.2 Lupasco in Relation to Physics and Metaphysics
10.2.1 Lupasco, Modern Physics and Cosmology
10.2.2 Lupasco and Metaphysics
10.2.3 Dubito Ergo Sum
10.3 Experimental Metaphysics and Metaphilosophy
10.3.1 Dynamic Opposition and Metaphilosophy
10.3.2 Anti-realism and Metaphilosophy
10.4 The Problem of Free Will in the Context of Philosophy in Reality
10.4.1 Free Will, Appearance and Reality
10.4.2 Free Will as Self-forming Willings
10.4.3 Free Will as Intuition
10.4.4 Free Will and Moral Responsibility
10.5 Phenomenology: Understanding the World Through Human Experience
10.5.1 Appearance and Reality
10.5.2 The Recovery by Phenomenology
10.5.3 The Recovery of Phenomenology
10.6 The Naturalization of Phenomenology
10.6.1 Husserl and the Naturalization of Phenomenology
10.6.2 The Naturalization of Heideggerian Phenomenology by Capurro
10.6.3 The Naturalization of Phenomenology and Logic in Reality
10.7 Positioning Phenomenology
10.8 Phenomenology and Semiotics
10.8.1 Brier’s Claim that Semiotics is More Powerful Than Phenomenology
10.8.2 The ‘Flesh’: Merleau-Ponty and Lakoff and Johnson
10.9 The Reconstruction of Phenomenology
10.9.1 Husserl and the Phenomenological Representation of Consciousness
10.9.2 Wu Kun and the Informational Standpoint
10.10 Two Alternatives to Standard Phenomenology
10.11 The Human Mind: The Biology of Phenomenology
10.12 Conclusion. From Essence to Existence
References
11 Information; Convergence of Science and Philosophy
11.1 Introduction. A Philosophical Triple
11.1.1 The Origin of Meaning
11.1.2 The Prelude in Communication
11.1.3 Relational Dialectics
11.2 Logic in Reality, Meaning and Information
11.2.1 Geometry/Position or Energy/Force; Change
11.2.2 Why Information is Enough
11.2.3 Information in the Presence- Absence Dualism
11.2.4 Information and the Laws of Thermodynamics
11.3 Information as an Operator
11.3.1 Burgin’s General Theory of Information
11.3.2 Information as a Natural Operator
11.3.3 Energy as Information
11.3.4 Information in Natural Objects and Processes. Self-regulation
11.4 The Causal—Compositional Concept of Information
11.4.1 The Operation of the Gödel Theorems
11.4.2 The Term ‘Causal Compositional’
11.5 Wu Kun and the Metaphilosophy of Information
11.5.1 Convergence of the Science and Philosophy of Information
11.6 The Philosophy of Information as a Metaphilosophy
11.6.1 The Informational Stance
11.6.2 Informational Thinking and the Metaphilosophy of Information
11.6.3 Towards an Informational Metaphilosophy of Science
References
12 Communication
12.1 Introduction
12.1.1 Positioning Communication
12.1.2 The Question of Dynamics. A Joint Theory
12.1.3 The Question of Meaning
12.1.4 The Floridi Interpretation
12.2 The Philosophy of Human Communication
12.2.1 Messaging Theory (Angeletics)
12.3 The Cognitive Basis for Human Communication
12.3.1 Personal Identity
12.3.2 Group Identity
12.4 The Ontology and Epistemology of Communication
12.4.1 The Time Dimension: Recursion, Incursion and Hyper-Incursion
12.4.2 Expectations and Contingencies
12.4.3 Communication in Society
12.4.4 Redundancy
12.4.5 Weak and Strong Anticipation
12.4.6 Structuration
12.4.7 Meaning and Information in Communication
12.5 The ‘Intentionality’ of the Social System
12.5.1 Knowledge-Based Systems in Society
12.5.2 Summary of the LIR Perspective. Epistemological Dynamics
12.6 The Socio-economic Polarization of Communication
12.7 Machine Communication and ‘Behavior’
12.8 Conclusion
References
13 Natural Philosophy
13.1 Introduction
13.1.1 Relations as Principles of Reality
13.1.2 The Quasi-Set Theory of Dieter Krause
13.1.3 The Fundamental Nature of Relations
13.2 Non-natural Philosophy
13.2.1 The Grounding Problem
13.2.2 Reasoning
13.2.3 Model-Based Reasoning
13.2.4 Abductive Logic and Abduction
13.2.5 Errors in Reasoning
13.3 The Naturalization of Natural Philosophy
13.3.1 Defining Natural Philosophy: The Relation of Human Beings to Nature
13.4 Natural Philosophy from the Historical Perspective
13.4.1 Conceptual Precursors of Natural Philosophy in Reality
13.4.2 Natural Philosophy in Ancient Greece. Change
13.4.3 Approaches to Natural Philosophy from Fichte to Whitehead
13.5 Natural Logic, Logic of Nature and Logic in Reality (LIR)
13.6 Realism and Anti-realism
13.6.1 Is Natural Philosophy Realist?
13.6.2 Realism and Anti-realism
13.7 Toward a Metaphilosophical Rejunction
13.7.1 The Origins of Natural Philosophy
13.7.2 Metaphilosophical Rejunction
13.7.3 Other Aspects of Natural Philosophy
13.8 Conclusion. Homo Sui Transcendentalis
References
14 Anti-philosophy
14.1 Introduction
14.2 Some Current Views of Anti-philosophy
14.2.1 Antonio Palomo-Lamarca: “Philosophy is Dead”
14.2.2 Introduction to Antiphilosophy
14.2.3 What is Anti-philosophy?
14.3 Badiou: From Mathematics to Truth
14.3.1 Grounding a Notion of the Subject
14.3.2 The Philosophy of Forcing
14.3.3 The Axiom of Choice in Lupasco and Badiou: Time and the Event
14.4 Badiou and Wittgenstein
14.5 The Anti-philosophy of Stéphane Lupasco: Affect
14.5.1 Onto-Logic?
14.6 Non-philosophy
14.7 Interim Conclusion
References
15 Philosophy in Reality as Process
15.1 Introduction. From Kant to Levinas
15.1.1 Process and Change; Becoming and Being
15.2 Toward a Non-truth-Functional Philosophy
15.2.1 Recovery
15.2.2 Discovery
15.2.3 Method. Two Features of Logic in Reality
15.3 The Question of Judgment
15.3.1 Transcendental Idealism and Transcendental Realism
15.3.2 Innate Capacity for Judgment. Propositional Content
15.3.3 Intuitions and Concepts
15.3.4 Transcendental Logic
15.3.5 Analytic and Synthetic Judgments
15.3.6 Non-theoretical Judgments
15.3.7 Conclusion: Immanent Judgment?
15.4 Neo-Kantianism
15.4.1 Forwards and Backwards
15.4.2 The Marburg School: The Transcendental Method
15.4.3 The Marburg School: The Philosophy of Logic
15.5 Naturalism
15.5.1 Ontological Naturalism
15.5.2 Methodological Naturalism. Intuition
15.6 Popper’s Three World Ontology
15.7 Existence. The Concept in Lupasco
15.8 Transcendence-In-Immanence
15.8.1 Gilles Deleuze. Immanence and Life
15.8.2 Emmanuel Levinas
15.8.3 Levinas, Husserl and Heidegger; Transcendence-In-Immanence
15.9 Philosophy in Reality as Process
15.10 Logic in Reality and Dynamic Being
15.10.1 The Characteristics and Categories of Dynamic Being
15.10.2 The Dynamicity of Johanna Seibt
15.10.3 Dynamic Ontology in Whitehead
15.10.4 The Difference Between Dynamical Systems and Process Theories
15.10.5 A Chinese View of Dynamic Being. Harmony
15.10.6 Process-Relational Ontology in Evolutionary Biology
References
Part IIIThe Philosophy of Structures and Systems
16 Structures and Complex Systems
16.1 Introduction: Structures and Systems
16.2 What Is a Structure?
16.2.1 Structural Realism and Relations
16.2.2 Scientific Realism, Structural Realism and Structuralism
16.3 Structural Reality
16.3.1 Some Key Structural Triads
16.3.2 Structuralism and Structural Realism
16.3.3 Other Differences with the LIR Concept of Structure and Reality
16.4 What Is a System?
16.4.1 “To Be and not to Be; that is the System”
16.4.2 The Lupasco Concept of System
16.4.3 The Lupasco Systemology as a Philosophy of Systems
16.5 The Lupasco Theory of Systems
16.5.1 The Relation of Antagonism
16.5.2 The Relation of Contradiction
16.5.3 The Principle of Antagonism Applied to Energy
16.6 Contemporary Systems Theory
16.6.1 von Bertalanffy and Laszlo
16.6.2 Systems Theory and the Role of Logic in Reality
16.7 Systems Science and Complex Systems
16.7.1 Transdisciplinarity and Systems Thinking
16.7.2 Complexity
16.7.3 Gianfranco Minati: Logical Openness
16.7.4 Toward a General Theory of Emergence
16.8 Logic in Reality and the New Systems Theory of Minati
16.8.1 Beyond von Bertalanffy
16.8.2 Toward a Post-Good Old Fashioned Systems Theory
16.8.3 From a Reductionist to a Post-Reductionist Systems Theory
16.8.4 Properties of a New Systemics. Non-separability
16.8.5 Quantum Field Theory
16.8.6 Change and Non-change. Symmetry
16.8.7 The Question of Computability
16.8.8 Coherence and Emergence
16.8.9 Mesoscopic Variables and Meta-Structures
16.8.10 Conceptualizations, Descriptions and Representations in Post-GOFS
16.8.11 The Philosophy of the Middle Way
16.9 Hooker and the Philosophy of Complex Systems
16.9.1 Hofkirchner and the General Systems Theory of Bertalanffy
16.9.2 Robert C. Bishop. Against Ontological Indeterminism
16.10 The Contributions of Hooker
16.10.1 A Scientist Turned Philosopher
16.10.2 Conceptualizing Reduction, Emergence and Self-Organization
16.10.3 Advances in the Philosophy of Complex Systems
16.10.4 What Has Been Missing from LIR?
References
17 Living Systems: The Epistemic Relation to Reality
17.1 Introduction: Life as Internally Determined Activity According to Aristotle
17.2 The Problem of Complexification. Change
17.3 Natural Selection: Can It Be the Most Fundamental Biological Principle?
17.4 Back to Plato: Nomogenesis
17.5 Extended Evolutionary Synthesis: More Challenges and Expectations
17.6 RNA as an Intermediate Component of the Molecular Biology Triad Representing an Actualized T-State
17.7 Relational Biology as the Basis for Theoretical Biology
17.7.1 The Relational Biology of Rashevsky and Rosen
17.7.2 Physics and the Relational Foundations of Biology
17.7.3 Biological Transactions: Relational Biology and Internal Measurement
17.8 Ontolons and Semiosis in Living Systems. Second-Order Non-linearity and Poincaré Oscillators
17.8.1 Non-linear Interactions in Living Systems
17.8.2 Limitations of the Concept of Non-linearity
17.8.3 Expansion of Non-linearity: Poincaré Oscillators
17.8.4 Constraints in Dynamic Semiotic Systems
17.9 Rosen’s Model and an Endoperspective
17.10 The Epistemic Cut and Living Processes
17.11 Conclusion: A Systems Picture and a Philosophical Perspective
17.11.1 A Philosophical Reflection
References
18 Social Systems: Transformation of External Reality by Communicating, Reflexive Subjects
18.1 Introduction. Self-Reference and Social Reality
18.2 Objective Patterns of Reflexive Consciousness
18.2.1 Anticipation of Reflexive Structures in Psychoanalysis
18.2.2 Formalized Reflexive Structures in the Model of Lefebvre
18.3 The Logic of Consciousness and Lupasco
18.4 Reflexive Choice as a Filter Operating via the Res Potentia
18.4.1 The Problem of Spontaneity in a Bayesian Picture
18.5 The Transactional Reflexive Action of “Challenge and Response”
18.6 Transformation of Eidoi into Technoi as a Basis of Social Evolution
18.6.1 Reflectiveness and Invention of Tools to Transform External Reality
18.6.2 Communication and Connection
18.6.3 Transformation of the Industrial Basis of Societies
18.7 Reflexive Choice and Cliodynamics
18.7.1 Cliodynamics as a Modelling of Reflexive Social Processes
18.7.2 Imperiogenesis
18.7.3 The Formation of Global Civilization
18.8 Conclusion. Progress in Social Evolution
References
19 Social Systems: The Global Sustainable Information Society. Ecology
19.1 Introduction. What is a Society?
19.1.1 Evolutionary Systems Theory
19.1.2 The Commons from a Critical Social Systems Perspective
19.1.3 The Dialectics of the Nature-Society System
19.1.4 Nature and Society/Culture
19.1.5 Political Implications
19.2 A Logic of the Third in Society
19.2.1 Society as a Process of Systemic Emergence
19.3 The Logic of the Third and Lupasco
19.3.1 Stages in Society
19.4 Structures of Society: Modernism and Post-Modernism
19.4.1 Being Postmodern: “The Step Backwards”
19.4.2 Rorty and Irony
19.5 Public Philosophy
19.6 Creativity, Love and Freedom
19.6.1 Critical Realism
19.7 The Philosophy of Ecology
19.7.1 The New Central Role of Ecology
19.7.2 The Information Ecology of Zhong
19.7.3 Two Forms of Information Ecology
19.8 The Philosophy of Sustainability and Ecology
19.8.1 Strategies for Avoiding Tragedies of the Commons
19.8.2 Sustainability and Transdisciplinarity
19.9 The Philosophies of Society and Their Study. The Sociotype
19.10 Conclusion and Outlook. Sustainabilization and Regeneration
References
20 Summary and Conclusions: Is This a New Book of Changes?
20.1 The Path Towards a New Synthesis
20.1.1 The Philosophy of Science
20.1.2 Science and Philosophy in Husserl. A Discontinuity
20.2 New Directions in Communication and Information Theory. Meaning
20.3 The Philosophization of Systems Theory
20.4 Principles and the Common Good
20.5 Is This Book a ‘New Book of Changes’?
References
Index