Hegel: Intensive And Extensive Magnitude

The correlated terms of intensive and extensive abstraction have another antecedent in the reflections of G.W.F Hegel on intensive and extensive “magnitude.” The following fragments can be found in Hegel’s “Science of Logic- Identity of Intensive and Extensive Magnitude” – sections 480, 481 and 483: “480. The determinateness of intensive magnitude is, therefore, to be … Continue reading Hegel: Intensive And Extensive Magnitude

K. Palmer: “The Inverse Dual Of a System”

One of the most important insights made in the realm of Systems Theory was due to Kent D. Palmer in a paper published in 2010. (Source: http://holonomic.net/sd01V04.pdf ). The key paper, under the title “Advanced Meta-Systems Theory For MetaSystems Engineers,” presents a radical reformulation of the relations between the concepts of “system” and “meta-system.” Palmer … Continue reading K. Palmer: “The Inverse Dual Of a System”

Distinctions: Two Kinds of Negative Statements

Careless discussion tends to ignore important philosophical criteria, as noted in previous notes and articles in this blog. One of these is the distinction between two basic types of negative statements: true negations, and complements of the predicate. Daniel J. Castellano, a mathematician and historian from MIT and Boston University covers these points in his … Continue reading Distinctions: Two Kinds of Negative Statements

J. Maritain on Extensive and Intensive Visualisation

In his “A Preface to Metaphysics,” (Fourth Lecture, section 10) Jacques Maritain writes: “I have already spoken of the most important distinction which the ancient drew between abstractio totalis, which I will call extensive visualisation, and abstractio formalis, which I will call intensive or characterising and typifying visualisation. At first intellectual visualisation is as yet … Continue reading J. Maritain on Extensive and Intensive Visualisation

Discontinuity in Language

Discontinuity is manifest in language in the sense that there is a complete separation between the signifier and the signified, between the symbolic and that for which the symbol stands for. This is also called the “arbitrariness of the signifier” (see the work of Ferdinand de Saussure - http://www.revue-texto.net/Saussure/Saussure.html ) The term “arbitrariness” means here … Continue reading Discontinuity in Language

Intensive and Extensive Abstraction

“When reflection, turning to the comprehension of chaotic experience, busies itself about recurrences, when it seeks to normalise in some way things coming and going, and to straighten out the causes of events, that reflection is inevitably turned toward something dynamic and independent, and can have no successful issue except in mechanical science. When on … Continue reading Intensive and Extensive Abstraction

Complete and Incomplete Action

When reading the Bhagavad Gita, among the teachings on human action we find a lesson which could not be more contrary to “common sense” as it is conceived today: “The world is imprisoned in its own activity, except when actions are performed as worship of God. Therefore you must perform every action sacramentally, and be … Continue reading Complete and Incomplete Action

Human Life And Natural Life

To what extent is human life natural? To what extent is it natural life? This is the fundamental un-answered question of anthropology. On all sides, on all related sciences there is an assumption that human life is different –either superior or inferior—but essentially different to nature. The presumption is that human life is either extraordinary … Continue reading Human Life And Natural Life

A Logical Argument

In the Monadologie (1714), G. W. Leibniz writes: “And there must be simple substances, since there are compounds; for a compound is nothing but a collection or aggregatum of simple things.” - tr. Robert Latta. (“Einfache Substanzen muß es geben, weil es zusammengesetzte gibt; denn das Zusammengesetzte ist nichts, als eine Anhäufung oder ein aggregatum … Continue reading A Logical Argument

Nihilism and Meaning Come Together

In “Against Philosophical Appeasement” ( http://www.reocities.com/Athens/Thebes/dcs11.htm ) Anthony and Mary Mansueto write a magnificent indictment of nihilism, which starts as follows: “Nothing is harder for this sceptical age than to believe that the universe ultimately has meaning –except, perhaps, the idea that such a belief is not only warranted, but is in fact commanded, by … Continue reading Nihilism and Meaning Come Together