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You are hereby invited to the sixth seminar in our new interdisciplinary series on Evolution, Complexity and Cognition (ECCO) <http://ecco.vub.ac.be> : Apostel's concept of causality: defining Being by folding "logic" on "life". Wim Christiaens (Universiteit Gent) Abstract: Calling Leo Apostel a logician-slash-analytical philosopher who abuses normal formal logics to integrate strong naturalistic insights (obtained from his work with Piaget and his belief in irreversibility) into an analytical philosophy (for example in Matière et Forme), would not do his thought justice. When we follow his own indications about the place of his thought in the philosophical tradition, we find that he simultaneously accepts and rejects the logical empiricist distinction between the logical and verifiable (broadly theory) on the one hand, and the unverifiable, metaphysical, emotional, aesthetic (we will refer to it broadly as life) on the other hand. Initially he was an ardent reader of Kierkegaard, while at the same time embracing the philosophy of Carnap; he quickly abandons this position, from that moment on always trying to deal with all philosophical questions, and especially those concerning life and the meaning of life, rationally. However this does not mean that he rejected the strong distinction between theory and life: using a Deleuzian concept we could say that he folded theory on life, leading to his typical practice of always combining in sometimes logically illicit ways mutually exclusive views or approaches when developing his own thoughts on a subject. He called this concretism, which is in the first place an ontology; his theory of causality (Matière et Forme I), which founds his ontology, is an excellent example of concretism, as is his atheist spirituality first presented in Religious Atheism?. We will explore the issues we briefly described here in our presentation, looking at both examples we mentioned; we will try to end with a definite notion of concretist ontology. Leo Apostel, Matière et Forme. Introduction à une épistémologie réaliste, Communication and Cognition, Gent, 1974. Leo Apostel, Mysticism, ritual and atheism, in Religious Atheism ?, Editors L. Apostel, R. Pinxten, R. Thibau, F. Vandamme, E. Story Scientia, Gent, 1981. F. Vandamme and R. Pinxten (eds.), The Philosophy of Leo Apostel: The Philosopher Replies, Communication and Cognition, Gent, 1989. When? This Wednesday 14th February, 2-4 pm. Where? The seminar room is B 0.036 (building B, level 0, close to the human sciences computer rooms), on the VUB Campus Etterbeek. Coffee and drinks are available. Free entrance: everybody welcome! _____ Seminar Program for the coming weeks: 21th February Dirk Kenis, Knowledge Management in Virtual Communities: opportunities for Agile Group Decision Support Systems (GDSS) 28th February Erden Goktepe, Mediating International Agents: The Question of Efficiency. 7th March Karin Verelst, title to be announced 14th March Helen de Cruz, Universal Selection Theory and the Evolution of Mathematics. Future speakers : Arnold De Loof, Mehmet Tezcan, Klaas Chielens. _____ See and discuss the past seminars! Date Speaker Topic More 10 Jan Carlos Gershenson Towards Self-organizing Bureaucracies Presentation <http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/ECCO/Seminars/SOBs-ECCO.pdf> Paper <http://uk.arxiv.org/abs/nlin.AO/0603045> Discussion <http://www.knosos.be/?q=node/1657> 17 Jan Francis Heylighen Characteristics and Problems of the Gifted: neural propagation depth and flow motivation as a model of intelligence and creativity Paper <http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/Papers/GiftednessModel.pdf> Discussion <http://www.knosos.be/?q=node/1617> 25 Jan Jan Bernheim A Progressive Evolutionary Worldview Presentation <http://pcp.vub.ac.be/ECCO/Seminars/Bernheim2007.ppt> Discussion <http://www.knosos.be/?q=node/1825> 31 Jan Clément Vidal A Minimal Philosophical Agenda. Worldview Construction as a Philosophical Method Presentation <http://ecco.vub.ac.be/%7Eclement/seminars2007/ecco-clem.ppt> Discussion <http://www.knosos.be/?q=node/1660> 7 Feb Mixel Kiemen Complex-Adaptive information processing Presentation <http://www.mixel.be/files/CAP.pdf> <http://www.knosos.be/?q=node/1661> Discussion More informations about the ECCO seminars: http://www.knosos.be/?q=node/1666 (PDF <http://www.knosos.be/?q=system/files/ecco_seminars_2007_0.pdf> program with abstracts). Best regards, Clément Vidal. _________________________________ http://clement.vidal.philosophons.com <http://clement.vidal.philosophons.com/> Evolution, Complexity and Cognition research group, Free University of Brussels. Krijgskundestraat 33. B-1160 Brussels, Belgium. +32 (0) 2 640 67 37 P.S.: please send me an email if you do not wish to receive these announcements anymore.
