Thesis (Ph. D.)--Montana State University--Bozeman, 2006. / Typescript. Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Hashem Nehrir. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 133-138).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Florida State University, 2006. / Advisor: Ladislav J. Kohout, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Dept. of Computer Science. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed Sept. 20, 2006). Document formatted into pages; contains xiii, 103 pages. Includes bibliographical references.

The purpose of this paper is to offer a general view of the philosophical affinities between Plato and Hegel through the analysis of the Hegelian interpretation of the Parmenides. We will show how the Hegelian approach to Plato, and his understanding of idealism and dialectics, is determined by Hegel’s debate with the philosophy of Kant. A brief exposé of the differences between Kantian transcendental idealism and Hegelian absolute idealism will be needed. Then, we will show some traits of the Hegelian hermeneutics of Plato in order to understand how the first part of the Parmenides admits parallelisms with certain excerpts of Hegel’s work, both regarding its philosophical purpose as well as stylistically. Finally, the Author expounds the Hegelian evaluation of the dialectical exercise from the second part of the Parmenides. There, Platonic Dialectic fails and does not accomplish its philosophical purpose, and becomes a valuable skepticism consubstantial to philosophical thought. / El propósito del presente trabajo es ofrecer un panorama de las afinidades filosóficas entre Platón y Hegel a partir del análisis de la interpretación hegeliana del Parménides. Se mostrará cómo la aproximación hegeliana a Platón y su comprensión del idealismo y la dialéctica están marcadas por el debate con la filosofía kantiana. Esto exige una breve exposición del idealismo trascendental kantiano frente al idealismo absoluto hegeliano, así como de la lógica trascendental kantiana frente a la lógica especulativa hegeliana. Se señalarán luego algunos rasgos hermenéuticos de la interpretación hegeliana de Platón para poder exponer después cómo la primera parte del Parménides admite paralelismos de intención filosófica y hasta narrativos con pasajes de obras de Hegel. Finalmente, se expondrá la evaluación hegeliana del ejercicio dialéctico de la segunda parte del Parménides. Esto exige indicar por qué la dialéctica platónica no logra su cometido filosófico del todo y queda “reducida” a un escepticismo, no desprovisto de valor sino consustancial a toda labor filosófica.

Thesis (Ph.D.(Computer Science))--University of Pretoria, 2009. / Abstract in English. Includes bibliographical references.

Description Logics form a family of powerful ontology languages widely used by academics and industry experts to capture and intelligently manage knowledge about the world. A key advantage of Description Logics is their amenability to automated reasoning that enables the deduction of knowledge that has not been explicitly stated. However, in order to ensure decidability of automated reasoning algorithms, suitable restrictions are usually enforced on the shape of structures that are expressible using Description Logics. As a consequence, Description Logics fall short of expressive power when it comes to representing cyclic structures, which abound in life sciences and other disciplines. The objective of this thesis is to explore ontology languages that are better suited for the representation of structured objects. It is suggested that an alternative approach which relies on nonmonotonic existential rules can provide a promising candidate for modelling such domains. To this end, we have built a comprehensive theoretical and practical framework for the representation of structured entities along with a surface syntax designed to allow the creation of ontological descriptions in an intuitive way. Our formalism is based on nonmonotonic existential rules and exhibits a favourable balance between expressive power and computational as well as empirical tractability. In order to ensure decidability of reasoning, we introduce a number of acyclicity criteria that strictly generalise many of the existing ones. We also present a novel stratification condition that properly extends `classical' stratification and allows for capturing both definitional and conditional aspects of complex structures. The applicability of our formalism is supported by a prototypical implementation, which is based on an off-the-shelf answer set solver and is tested over a realistic knowledge base. Our experimental results demonstrate improvement of up to three orders of magnitude in comparison with previous evaluation efforts and also expose numerous modelling errors of a manually curated biochemical knowledge base. Overall, we believe that our work lays the practical and theoretical foundations of an ontology language that is well-suited for the representation of structured objects. From a modelling point of view, our approach could stimulate the adoption of a different and expressive reasoning paradigm for which robustly engineered mature reasoners are available; it could thus pave the way for the representation of a broader spectrum of knowledge. At the same time, our theoretical contributions reveal useful insights into logic-based knowledge representation and reasoning. Therefore, our results should be of value to ontology engineers and knowledge representation researchers alike.

Can Hegel's Philosophy of Right do without the Science of Logic?”. The question posed by this paper’s title refers to the attempts of some contemporary authors, amongst them Axel Honneth, to update the central theses of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, though precisely (and deliberately) doing so without its alleged dependence on the Science of Logic. On account of several methodological and hermeneutical reasons, it is not easy to answer this question. It is well known that Hegel emphatically asserts that both works and philosophical projects depend on each other, but there is no consensus amongst specialists on how much the Logic actually influences the Philosophy of Right and in what way it does so. On the other hand, clearly any social philosophy needs a logical theory in a broad sense, whether it may be Hegelian or not. This is even more so if the aim is to update the Hegelian construction implicit in the notion of freedom. In any case, the discussion seems to bring forth the paradox of asserting both the current relevance and the obsolescence of the Hegelian notion of freedom. / La pregunta planteada en el título de esta contribución alude a los intentos de algunos autores contemporáneos, entre ellos el de Axel Honneth, por reactualizar los planteamientos centrales de la Filosofía del Derecho de Hegel, pero prescindiendo precisamente (y deliberadamente) de su supuesta dependencia de la Ciencia de la Lógica. Responder a esa pregunta no es fácil por diversas razones, metodológicas y hermenéuticas. Es sabido por cierto que Hegel sostiene enfáticamente la dependencia entre ambas obras y empresas filosóficas, pero no hay consenso entre los especialistas sobre qué peso real y de qué tipo posee la Lógica sobre la Filosofía del Derecho. De otro lado, es evidente que cualquier filosofía social requiere de una concepción lógica en sentido amplio, sea esta hegeliana o de otro tipo, más aun si lo que se pretende es actualizar la construcción hegeliana implícita en el concepto de libertad. En cualquier caso, la discusión parece mostrar un hecho paradójico que consiste en afirmar simultáneamente la actualidad y la obsolescencia de la concepción hegeliana de la libertad.

Ce mémoire est constitué d’une analyse du texte intitulé « Quel doit être le point de départ de la science ? » situé en ouverture de la Science de la logique. Partant de l’affirmation de Hegel selon laquelle le commencement de la Logique est inanalysable et indéfinissable, nous rapprochons la notion de définition de celle de spekulativer Satz et proposons d’étudier le concept de commencement en distinguant une perspective épistémologique d’une perspective ontologique. Cette distinction permettra de mettre en évidence la possibilité de définir le commencement d’une façon positive si l’on tient compte du choix (Entschluss) et de l’ordre qui émergent de l’abandon de la perspective épistémologique. Cette définition s’appuie sur la présence dans le texte d’un registre prescriptif et permet de rendre compte du fait que le commencement doit être à la fois absolu et unilatéral. Si la difficulté posée par cette définition demeure, c’est en raison de la nature même du commencement, où tout manque, même la stabilité d’une définition, sans pour autant que cette instabilité ne soit conforme au mouvement inhérent à la proposition spéculative. / In this thesis, we offer a reading of one of the Science of Logic’s opening sections, called “With what should the beginning of science be made?”, in which Hegel maintains that the beginning of the Logic cannot be analyzed nor defined. Hence, we connect the definition with the spekulativer Satz and propose to distinguish between epistemological and ontological perspectives on the notion of beginning to allow for its proper study. Taking into account the rejection of an epistemological perspective on the beginning, this will show that a positive definition of the beginning is acceptable if the notions of choice (Entschluss) and order that lay beneath the notions of criteria and presupposition are put forward. Such a definition grounds itself in the prescriptive dimension of Hegel’s text and explains why the beginning can be both absolute and one-sided. The difficulty of such a definition, however, remains, due to the very nature of the concept of beginning. Indeed, since the beginning lacks all properties, it also lacks the stability of a definition.