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Online Course

The Formal Ontology of the Natural Realism: The New Dual Paradigm in Natural Sciences.


Short Description

The course aims at presenting a first formalization of the natural realism (NR), as the formal ontology of the evolutionary cosmology based on quantum field theory (QFT). Following Quine’s remark that a theory of metaphysical deduction must include information about the ontic relations connecting the entities to which the asserts posed in direct implication relation are referring, NR follows Aquinas’ suggestion that this relation connecting entities is the converse implication of the formal causality. We offer, therefore, a formalization of NR in terms of a nested KD45 modal logic, as ontology of the generation of nested natural kinds (genera-species) of ever more complex physical systems. However, coalgebra is the proper, complete, meta-language of modal logics, so the metaphysical double implication can have its proper formal justification, in terms of (Aquinas’) “duality” (functorial homomorphism connecting two structures belonging to two opposite categories), between the logical truth (algebra) and the ontological truth (coalgebra), to which the former refers and by which it is satisfied. Hence, NR is also a formalization of Aquinas metaphysics of “participation of being” or “causal entailment” from the First Metaphysical Cause to the secondary physical causes.

Course Modules and Online Contents

The Course consists of 9 Modules, subdivided into 4 Sections. The Modules 0 and 1 are given in distance learning (e-learning) modality, the other modules will be given in onsite lecture modality. For following in a profitable way the onsite lectures, it is necessary to follow and to study the lectures given in e-learning modality.

For downloading the Course Syllabus, please click on the following link. If connected you can download the larger part of the supporting texts for deepening the contents of the lectures. Other texts are made available by clicking on the active links in the Bibliography slide of each lecture.

For accessing the Online Contents of each Module, as far as put online, please click on the Module Title in the Table below.

For avoiding connection problems in viewing slides of the e-learning modules, you can download the zip file with all the contents of each module. Create on your pc/mac a directory for each class of each module, download in it the zip archive of the class, and unzip inside it all the files in the zipped archive. Then click on the index.html file to start the viewer of the class contents. A more effective way for accessing the contents of each class is to dowload the pdf file and wiewing it with the most updated version of AdobeReader viewer.

FOR VIEWING BOTH ONLINE AND OFFLINE THE CLASSES, ALSO IN THEIR PDF VERSION, IT IS ALWAYS NECESSARY HOWEVER TO INSTALL BOTH ON PC AND ON MAC THE FLASHPLAYER VIEWER. ON IPAD OR MAC YOU CAN SEE ONLINE THE CLASSES BY USING A BROWSER COMPATIBLE WITH FLASHPLAYER (NOT COMPATIBLE WITH SAFARI) SUCH AS PUFFIN.

In this version, the online classes are not visible on mobile devices, pads/smartphones.

 

Table of Course Modules
Modules Topics Pdf Zip
SECTION ONE
0 Introduction and Course Overview
1 QFT: an evolutionary interpretation of nature from cosmology to neuroscience
Module 1 Class 1: QFT. A Paradigm Change
Module 1 Class2: From QM to QFT in Fundamental Physics
Module 1 Class 3: QFT Interpretation of Complex Systems
Module 1 Class 4: QFT application in Cognitive Neurosciences
Module 1 Tests
2 QFT in fundamental physics and the Aristotelian-Thomistic ontology of nature
Module 2 Class 1: The Aristotelian theory of the four causes
Module 2 Class 2: Aquinas’ metaphysical development of the Aristotelian ontology
SECTION TWO
3 Formal philosophy and formal ontology
Module 3: Formal philosophy and formal ontology
4 The formal ontology of the conceptual natural realism (CNR)
Module 4: The formal ontology of the conceptual natural realism (CNR)
SECTION THREE
5 The formal ontology of the natural realism (NR)
Module 5: The formal ontology of the natural realism (NR) I: logical vs. causal inference
6 The duality algebras/coalgebras  in category theory (CT)
The formal ontology of the natural realism (NR) II: Aczel sets and coalgebraic modal logic
SECTION FOUR
7 “Modal logics are coalgebraic”: an application to NR and to the duality logical/ontological truth
The formal ontology of the natural realism (NR) III:  the duality logical/ontological truth
8 Conclusions