Possible worlds and propositions are the most fundamental building blocks of intentional semantics, as well as the most fundamental building blocks of modal logic. Within the standard possible-world semantics there are two prevailing approaches to the explication of possible worlds and propositions. The first approach treats possible worlds as primitive and specifies propositions in terms of them (propositions as sets of primitive possible worlds in which they hold). The second approach treats propositions as primitive and specifies possible worlds in terms of them (possible worlds as maximal consistent sets of primitive propositions). Supposing we wish to stay within the standard possible-world setting, the aim of this paper will be to compare these two approaches: Which arguments have been (can be) listed in their favour? Can these arguments help us to decide between them? It should be clear that the present paper is not going to explicate any modal notions (such as necessity, obligation, belief, and so on); its perspective will not be semantic or logical, but rather methodological.
The paper deals with Newton’s eight definitions from his Principia making them a subject of logical-semantic and epistemological analyses. First, it lists these definitions and then presents two views on the nature of definition, as given in recent scholarly works. These views are applied to Newton’s definitions. Resulting from this application is the conclusion that Transparent Intensional Logic’s approach to definitions, once the latter contain magnitudes, is unable to reconstruct the fact that the magnitude (or magnitudes) in the defining is (are) different from the magnitude in the definiendum. Another result is the recognition that Newton’s eight definitions, regardless of their a priori nature, still yield an increase of knowledge about the world. This conclusion is justified by Newton’s computation of the mass of planets and his reflection on the possibility of space flight.
The investigation of intertextuality in the Czech scholarly milieu is traditionally demarcated by the Bakhtinian-Kristevan “broad” approach on the one hand, and by the Nitra School’s “technical” approach on the other. Nevertheless, it seems that one of the few Czech contributions to the topic, embodied in Lubomír Doležel’s conception of fictional worlds, namely in the notion of transduction, remains relatively unused. The theory of fictional worlds has taught us that fictional texts can be investigated not only as such but also on the level of the fictional worlds they underlie. The connections between literary works can thus be viewed against the background of all of the parts and procedures connected with a specific form of literary communication. Thus, an important aspect which is usually omitted by the classics of intertextuality is accented: the pragmatic aspect of the functioning of literary works. This aspect is implemented in the concept of transduction which actually enables literary scholars to investigate these relationships not only on the textual level (the intensional structures of fictional worlds), but also, equally importantly, on the level of story-worlds (the extensional structures of fictional worlds).
We know, how valuable the role of the functor ‘as’ played in conceptualism. The functor was a basic linguistic tool of conceptual art infrastructure – the minimal part of speech that allowed for the production of concepts, engaging ingenium in its primary function as ingenium comparans. The criticism of conceptualism, mainly comparison or identification of the artwork and analytic proposition revealed the fact that the tautological model of Kosuth is just one of many art concepts and remains a product of paralogical thinking. What is therefore decisive for conceptualism is an attempt to build a universal art theory: an idea, that for centuries has remained the basis for logical thinking, or the concept itself, in which paralogy cannot be eliminated. The tendency to narrow the meaning of a concept and limit art to its idea was marked in the text by Daniel Buren “Beware!” (1969-1970). How did it happen, that the formula of conceptism, used in the beginning of the decade by Henry Flynt in the text entitled “Concept Art” (1961) was replaced by conceptual art? For Flynt concept art was art whose materials were the language and concepts. According to him, a concept is a trace of an idea by Plato and means the intension of a name, but with today’s state of knowledge demanding an objective relationship between a name and its intension this meaning is incorrect. Therefore, if the relationship is subjective, then the concept as a possible opposition towards the objective idea occupies a privileged space in a language and keeps its strength. Also in Sol LeWitt’s “Paragraphs on Conceptual Art” (1967) and “Sentences on Conceptual Art” (1969), in which despite the fact that the expression ‘conceptual art’ appears explicitly, the term ‘concept’ remains an alternative to the idea, that may be simple and does not need to be complex. So according to Sol LeWitt, the concept implies a general direction, and ideas are its components. To radicalise this issue, let’s ask, if conceptualism privileges the conceptual, as its literally understood name would indicate? Or on the other hand is what is called a concept, that being something ingenial and that even though it includes a moment of ideation (abstracting and transcending sensuality, that is crossing the borders of the material paradigm of art towards the idea), it is not reduced to a conceptual element, but rather expresses sensuality or its basic modus? The text is an attempt to show the tension in the art of Polish conceptists who referred in their paralogical discourse to conceptualism, especially with reference to the example of Andrzej Partum’s work.
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