text:
The Eco Maker
Umberto Eco died on Saturday. The news shattered me, all the more because Eco had been slowly drifting away from the central role in my life that he had played for so long. But I was thinking of him just a few days ago, daydreaming, as I often do, about living on the road with nothing but what I could carry in a backpack. Foucault's Pendulum, I decided, would be the one novel I would bring for my own pleasure, consumed a page or two at a time in hotel lobbies or on train station platforms. I've noted here before that just about everything I've published at novel length, notably The Icon Thief, has been a kind of dialogue with Foucault's Pendulum, which rocked my world when I first read it more than twenty years ago, so that countless thankfully unfinished manuscripts from my teens bore the mark of its influence. The paperback copy I bought in my hometown all those years ago has accompanied me on every move ever since, and it's been read so often—certainly more than a dozen times—that it has taken on some of the qualities of my own face. On its spine, it bears two deep parallel creases, about half an inch apart, like the lifelines on the palm of a lovingly worn workman's glove: a testament to a lifetime's faithful service. And although I've retreated from and returned to it countless times over the last two decades, every cycle brings me closer to its vision again, so that by now I've accepted that it's a part of me.
But it wasn't until I heard the news of Eco's death that I began to reflect on what this really meant. Eco was an incredibly prolific writer and scholar, but for most fans, I have a feeling that he'll be remembered best for two books. The Name of the Rose remains, rightly, the more famous and beloved, and the first to be mentioned in any obituary: William of Baskerville is still the most fully realized character Eco ever created, even if I insist on picturing him as Sean Connery, and for a lot of readers, Brother William became the guide to a labyrinthine library that some of us never escaped. He pointed me toward Borges, as he did with so many others, which is legacy enough for anyone. If I'm honest with myself, he also turned me onto Latin, and to a lesser extent Greek, which I spent four years studying in college in part just so I could read that novel's many untranslated passages. (I achieved that goal with mixed success: there was probably a period of six months or so where I could easily read those sections at sight—as if the meanings were appearing in the margin in invisible ink—but the words have long since faded again.) And Foucault's Pendulum, his other lasting work, opened up a whole world of ideas, or, more accurately, the idea that seeking patterns in those ideas was the greatest game in the world. Eco warns us that it can also be a pathology, but he can only make his case by exposing us first to its delights, and I've spent most of my life walking the fine line that he traced.
That remarkable ability to spin webs of ideas into a book that ordinary readers could love—a challenge that many writers have tackled since and none has done nearly as well—explains why Eco was such a problematic figure to so many other authors. There was Salman Rushdie, who appears to have glimpsed the similarity between Eco and himself, in a sort of uncanny valley, and famously trashed Foucault's Pendulum as "entirely free of anything resembling a credible spoken word." And I've often quoted Tom Wolfe, who said, accurately enough: "Eco is a very good example of a writer who leads dozens of young writers into a literary cul-de-sac." (Although when I look at that statement now, I can't help but echo Tobias on Arrested Development: "There are dozens of us. Dozens!") Eco was a dangerous example for all the obvious reasons. He came to fiction in his fifties, after an entire career spent living in the world and thinking about ideas, which is very different from doing it in your twenties. His preternatural facility as a writer camouflaged the fact that his accomplishment in The Name of the Rose and Foucault's Pendulum was not only difficult, but all but irreproducible, even for him: I never managed to finish any of his later novels. These two books wouldn't exist at all if they didn't pull off the impossible feat of making us care about ideas as if they were people, but it's such a freakish trick that you want to warn young writers to spend their time with authors who struggle honestly with creating real men and women.
I agree with all of this. And I've spent much of my life trying to free myself from Eco's magic spell, even if it took me the better part of two novels to do so. But I've also come to realize that if Eco is a dead end, it's one that's still worth taking, if you're one of the dozens of young writers for whose souls Wolfe was so concerned. To take an illustration that Eco, with his omnivorous embrace of popular culture, might have liked: if this is a cul-de-sac, it's like the fake tunnel that Wile E. Coyote paints on the side of a wall, only to have the Road Runner race through it. There's something tantalizingly real and moving about Eco's artifice, and it strikes me now as just as valid as the ones created by all those painstaking noticers of human behavior. It's a story of books, not of everyday worries, as he writes in The Name of the Rose, and it's the story in which I've found myself, when I look honestly at my own life. It's a dead end that feels more expansive, as time goes on, than any other alternative. Even if it isn't for everyone, I've come to recognize that Eco was the point of origin from which I had to distance myself, only to find my steps curving back in its direction after I'd acquired some necessary experience that didn't come from libraries. And I can only return to those words from Thomas à Kempis that Eco shared with us so long ago: In omnibus requiem quaesivi, et nusquam inveni nisi in angulo cum libro. I sought peace everywhere, and I found it only in a corner with a book. And its title was Foucault's Pendulum.
Tagged with Foucault's Pendulum, Salman Rushdie, The Name of the Rose, Thomas à Kempis, Tom Wolfe, Umberto Eco
« Quote of the Day
Quote of the Day »
I absolutely love the passion in you writing here. Look forward to reading more.
indokardia
Really loved reading this. Because finding an author whose work you enjoy and whose writing grips you so intensely is such a hard thing to do. His work definitely intrigues me so I might have to look into it.
It's very inspiring to read this sir.
everythingrightandwrongwiththeworld
Beautiful words, loved this article, I could tell you put a lot of effort in to this :) I have just started my blog would love it if you checked it out!
tessbloggs
I luv this
mamudih
If you struggle with addiction like I do follow my blog
https://itsalwaysdarkestbeforethedawnsite.wordpress.com/
sheflieswithherownwings4
ekaristi92
En iyisi sebeplere sarılmak,www.ikincielesyapendik.com
Pendik ikinci el eşya
BongChingChing Approves.
Love,BCC
bongchingching
I like this. visit my blog have a read https://blog43rdwold.wordpress.com/
blog43rdworld
Sajda Afifi
Wow! Nice post.
Edouard A
This article has inspired me to revisit his work. Have you read it in English? I think the problem I have getting through this is the translation but I am at a loss as I only know English…
Dean Kutzler
@Dean Kutzler: William Weaver's translations of Eco's novels are excellent.
nevalalee
I will have to look for that, thank you.
This was really inspiring.
805smiles


This was such a great read, especially being from Maryland and knowing locations in DC and Virginia. Elle Cosimano grew up under the supervision of a teacher and an maximum security guard, so she knows a bit about YA and the government sector. Living in DC, this book was a great way to showcase her knowledge of the area for the reader.
Now, with that all being said, this book is full of mystery and thriller. Nearly Boswell is sort of this rough 16 year old who might as well be a genius. She is competing for a scholarship while decoding messages in the classifieds every Friday. This gets her into some deep trouble when her tutor subjects start going missing...and dying.
Well-written with all the right details and emotions, this YA book is a must read! Cosimano puts enough suspense in it without feeling like this can't be solved- of course not without a few obstacles in the way. The 'powers' i speak of in the title of this post will make sense when you actually read it! I can't give it away!
4.5 stars just because it may take a while to get the full circle of the plot, especially when it comes to Nearly's family and her 'power'. Nearly Found is on the way to my house and I cannot wait to read what is next for Nearly.


Leupold Gold Presentation Scope, 24K, one of twenty created to commemorate 90th Anniversary in 1997, pristine in display case - Sportsman's Legacy, Fine firearms, related books and sporting collectibles. Representing estates, collectors and nonprofit conservation organizations.
Leupold Vari-X III 3.5-10x50mm Gold Presentation Scope. To commemorate their 90th Anniversary in 1997, Leupold created an edition of 24K gold plated scopes and donated them to various national wildlife conservation, hunting and pro-gun organizations to be used as fundraising vehicles. Just twenty were produced. The program was very successful, each bringing $6,000 – $10,000 at the time. This particular example remains in pristine condition, rests in the original presentation box and includes the 90th Anniversary medallion, protective logo slip and informational card. The turret is marked "1 of 20". The price is firm and layaway is available. $5,000 plus shipping.


The Alabama DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) is responsible for licensing the drivers of Alabama, registration & title, investigating complaints, and maintaining records. The motorcycle license section of the AL DMV offers a wealth of resources, from FAQs to manuals to written practice tests. You can also use the AL DMV website to schedule an appointment and find driver test locations.


Recently, an exhibition about the little-known Scythians opened at the British Museum. The Scythians were nomadic tribespeople who flourished in the steppe land around Russia, Kazakhstan and Ukraine between 900 and 200BC. They left no written records, but an enormous variety of artefacts have been found preserved in icy burial mounds. We also know about them from written records from other cultures, such as Ancient Greece: the historians Herodotus and Strabo both write about them at length.
I stepped into this exhibition knowing nothing about the Scythians, except for maybe that they were similar to the Dothraki from Game of Thrones. That was it. The first exhibit was a gold belt plaque which displayed a dead man, a goddess and a tree of life. Crucially, the belt plaque also contains images of a horse and of a quiver full of arrows. Important imagery for a warrior culture. The first thing I noticed when walking into this exhibition, however, was not the shiny gold belt buckle, but the artificial wind sound which whistled throughout the first room. Piercing and sharp, we were plunged into the sounds of the cold and harsh climate the Scythians had to contend with, whilst being faced with the intricacy of their craftwork.
Much of the next room contained more belt buckles (with images of animals in a characteristic 2D stance, all exquisitely made), and engravings showing Russia in the 17th century, at about the time the Scythian burial mounds in Siberia were first being excavated. I thought this was an interesting curatorial choice, because it helped me to view the Scythian artefacts jointly with the Russian artefacts from about the time the Scythian artefacts were discovered. This can be used to inform the onlooker about the context in which they were excavated.
Further on in the exhibition were artefacts more closely connected to the domestic life of the Scythians, including (slightly alarmingly at first) the tattooed skin of a Scythian. This was a useful aid to use to visualise a Scythian warrior, and helped to humanise them too. This helped me understand the Scythians more, but obviously didn't help the elderly woman behind me, who remarked to her friend that the warrior must have "looked like a punk-scribblings all over his skin- ridiculous and ugly." There were then more bronze artefacts, and a rug which (although it was 2000 years old), my Mum thought looked like it had come from Habitat (some things never change I guess, even in interior design). Rather interestingly there was also a hemp smoking kit (hemp smoking was thought to be a communal activity) and my favourite artefact in the exhibition: a felt swan which decorated a part of a carriage. I loved this swan because it was so obvious what it was, and so delicately made, yet seemed extremely modern. That's part of what I love about history, I think: that objects can be so old ,but yet so modern at the same time.
At the end of the exhibition was a rather interesting cabinet full of artefacts not created by the Scythians, but other cultures which interacted with them. There was a rather beautiful Greek ceramic which showed a Scythian as the Greeks imagined/interpreted them. This was very interesting to see because it was a piece of evidence which could be used to examine how Greeks saw the Scythians, but which was a piece of material culture rather than a piece of literature. There was also an Achaemenid writing tablet which talked about the Scythians, although it might have been nice to have a translation of this for those of us whose Sumerian isn't quite up to scratch, it was still amazing to see all these cultures interacting with a culture I had hitherto not known was so important.
My one quibble with this exhibition (and it's a quibble I tend to have with museums/exhibitions in general) is that it's very hard to understand the culture of a people and the story of artefacts without putting it in historical context. For someone like me, who knows next to nothing about the Scythians, it would have been enriching to the experience of the exhibition to have more of an explanation about the Scythians as a society: an explanation or a demonstration of how their tents looked, and how they lived with each other on the plain. The hemp-smoking kit did hint at a communal society- chemical analysis of the hair of ordinary Scythians showed that they all smoked hemp, but few hemp-kits have been found. This hints that this practice must have been a communal one, and therefore was the whole culture a communal one? It would make sense for a nomadic tribe. However, there was some attempt to put the artefacts in context. The engraved rocks were displayed in front of a backdrop of Siberia, to help put the rocks into the context in which they would have existed, but in an ideal world, I think putting more of the objects in context would have help me understand the Scythians as a culture slightly more.
Overall, I really enjoyed this exhibition. My singular context quibble aside, I thought this exhibition helped me organise my thoughts about the ancient world in a more cohesive way- because on my mental map of the ancient world the blurry part around Russia and the Altai mountains is now much clearer. 4/5- go and see this exhibition if you can!
This exhibition is on at the British Museum until the 14th January 2018.
← Another video- it's me being interviewed by @dapperdan75!


text:
Week In Geek
Avengers Endgame Review- A Love Letter of Epic Proportions
I've been a superhero fan ever since I was a child running around pretending to shoot webs out of my hand and stopping imaginary bad guys from robbing banks. My mother loves to tell the stories of me pretending to be Spider-Man and making the noises of the web. Thwip Thwip. It's a story that always makes me feel warm and toasty inside. Part of it is the simplicity of childhood. The lack of stress of work, bills, and responsibility. The other half is childhood wonderment and excitement. That need to hold on to something that is so valuable and instrumental in molding the type of person you're going to be. I was lucky to grow up in a household where imagination and superheroes were encouraged and because of that superheroes became a part of my DNA at a very young age and helped define my childhood.
There was a time where I kind of separated myself from superhero culture. I kept it at arms distance but wasn't actively involved. As a teenager you want to try and "fit in" and seem "cool" and suddenly superheroes aren't as cool in tenth grade as they were in fifth. I strayed for a little while, but I never fully distanced myself. I never forgot about Spider-Man or Captain America even if I wasn't spending a lot of time with them. I may not have played with my action figures but I also wasn't willing to put them in the basement to collect dust just yet.
Then one day I was on line at a Blockbuster Video and picked up an issue of Rolling Stone. There was this small blurb concerning an upcoming Marvel Comics event called Civil War where the heroes were all fighting each other. My mind instantly traveled back to a time where it was socially acceptable to play out endless scenarios with my action figures. Scenarios that would test and shape my imagination as well as the durability of my toys. And here in my hand was a magazine telling me that my childhood friends were about to start fighting each other and I felt nostalgic. I realized how much I missed superheroes, and with Civil War, I started the process of re-acclimating myself within superhero culture. Trying to make up for years of lost time.
That's about thirteen years ago now, and a lot has changed since I picked up that issue of Rolling Stone. We now live in a world where superhero culture is celebrated by damn near everyone. It's fascinating to behold. Comic book fans were the outcasts, the butt of jokes, and now everyone is coming to the realization that superheroes and comics… well, they're actually pretty cool. It's easy to make the joke that now the "nerds" run the world, but I like to look at it from the perspective that everyone else is just playing catch up. Like I had to do thirteen years ago. That there are stories here to be told with meaning and relatable characters. That superpower doesn't negate the human factor of our heroes, and Marvel Studios has helped introduce an entirely new generation to comic books and superheroes. Iron Man, Captain America, the Guardians of the Galaxy, and Loki are all household names now, something that I still can't believe. If fifteen-year-old Kevin had only known he probably wouldn't have ever strayed from the path.
Last year when Infinity War was released it seemed like a cumulation of everything that Marvel Studios had created within the MCU.
"At the end of the day, Infinity War delivers what may be considered the greatest comic book movie spectacle of all time. From the minute the movie opens all the way to the final post-credit scene the film feels massive and important like you're watching something profoundly epic. Infinity War is an event. A celebration."
That was apart of the closing of my review, and I still feel that way. Infinity War was a feast. This event that still doesn't seem possible. It took all my action figures from when I was a child and splashed them across a movie screen in this massive nostalgic trip that allowed me to celebrate both my childhood and adulthood. That told me I could hold on to these heroes and moments and allow them to shape me in a different way. The whole thing was mind-blowing, and I never expected to experience something quite like that in my life. But once I had, I felt represented. I felt elated. I felt… such deep joy. That's a lot of emotion to come from a superhero movie.
In that regard, Avengers Endgame seemed to have this impossible task of living up to those feelings. Infinity War was this epic celebration of comics and superheroes, how could a sequel possibly live up to that? What could be the follow-up act? Movies within the MCU come with a certain degree of expectations now, and while they're still fun and exciting, we also want them to live up to the hype. As a childhood fan of superheroes and comics, we understand that some of you are just noticing them for the first time but we want them to stick around. We want you to see why we've loved these stories and heroes most of our lives.
Avengers Endgame was given an impossible task… and it far exceeded any and all of my expectations.
It's very difficult to write a review for this film and it has very little to do with spoilers. I understand that despite the box office numbers that there are still people out there who haven't seen the movie. Those people deserve to experience Endgame as it was intended. As an open love letter to the MCU and its fans. If Infinity War was the spectacle than Endgame is the more intimate, personal conclusion to this narrative. Don't get me wrong, Endgame has spectacle in breathtaking fashion, but don't come in expecting Infinity War 2. No, this is very much its own film that takes everything that made Infinity War great and expands upon. Upping the tension, emotion, and character and delivering something that not only resonates with the audience but manages to celebrate everything that came before it.
Endgame should be impossible. By all means, this should be a movie that collapses under the weight of its expectations, but it doesn't. It balances eleven years of MCU storytelling across its Hulk like shoulders with such ease and care. The Russo Brothers not only understand the universe they're working in, but they appreciate it. Endgame is quite literally a celebration of everything the MCU has done to this point. Just about all the twenty-one movies that came before it have a place here, and they don't play out as cheap easter eggs either. No, everything serves a purpose. A reminder. A nostalgic, emotional note. Character growth. Everything within Endgame is deliberate and calculated with the utmost respect for its source material.
There is a very real Return of the King feel here… minus the fifteen endings. Endgame represents the end of an era. The MCU going forward will be different. There is no doubt about that. Endgame isn't the final chapter of the Marvel Cinematic Universe but the closing of something that has exceeded anything that's happened in film before it. A twenty-two film shared universe that asks to be binged. Where each movie is a small piece of an ever-evolving puzzle. A puzzle that finally takes its full, spectacular shape with Endgame. This is all about the journey and all journeys have an end.
Endgame and the entire MCU have done something special over the course of these eleven years, and no matter what comes next, it will never match what came before it. And that's okay. The future of the MCU is allowed to be different and new, and that's why we'll love it. Before we move on to this evolution though, Endgame serves as a reminder of the magic of storytelling. The celebration and growth of characters. The power of imagination. The love of community.
As a child, I never would have imagined going to a packed movie theater where all my favorite superheroes were about to be on screen. I never would have imagined this packed theater cheering and clapping as the story progressed. I never would have imagined the tears that streamed down my face as I watched. Tears that represented so many different things. I don't know if we ever see another movie come along with the same amount of magnitude and cultural significance as Avengers Endgame. This feels generational but the funny thing is the number of generations that it speaks to.
Avengers Endgame is the movie we want it to be. It's the movie we need it to be. It's a gift. It's a celebration. It's a love letter. Not only to the stories and characters who make the universe but the fans who have followed them along the way. In a lot of ways, Endgame is beautiful. Avengers Endgame is more than a comic book movie about superheroes. It represents so many different things to so many different people. And for that… I love it three thousand.
Kevin Carey April 28, 2019 April 28, 2019 Action Figures, adulthood, Ant-Man, Asgard, Avengers Endgame, Avengers Infinity, Benedict Cumberbatch, Black Panther, Black Widow, Blockbuster, Blockbuster Video, Books, Bradley Cooper, Brie Larson, Captain America, Captain Marvel, Childhood, Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Chris Pratt, Civil War, Comic Books, comics, Dave Bautista, Doctor Strange, Drax, Endgame, Gamora, Groot, Guardians of the Galaxy, Hawkeye, Infinity, Infinity Gauntlet, Infinity Stones, Infinity War, Iron Man, Jeremy Renner, Kevin Feige, Loki, Lord of the Rings, Mark Ruffalo, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Marvel Civil War, Marvel Comics, Marvel Studios, MCU, Nebula, Peter Parker, Reading, Return of the King, Robert Downey Jr., Rocket Raccoon, Rolling Stone, Scarlet Johanson, Spider-Man, Stan Lee, Star Lord, Steve Rogers, Superheroes, Thanos, The Avengers, The Falcon, The Guardians of the Galaxy, The Hulk, The Russo Brothers, The Wasp, The Winter Soldier, Thor, Thwip, Tom Hiddleston, Tom Holland, Tony Stark, toys, Vin Diesel, War Machine
12 thoughts on "Avengers Endgame Review- A Love Letter of Epic Proportions"
Pingback: Week In Geek- Evil Superman, Stranger Things Promotions, & Meh Aladdin | I Am Geek
Pingback: Week In Geek- Captain Marvel In Your Home, Godzilla, & Good Omens | I Am Geek
Pingback: Endgame: One Low Key #Fangirl's Perspective | I Am Geek
Pingback: Is It Too Soon For An Endgame Re-Release? | I Am Geek
Pingback: Week In Geek- Legion Bids Farewell, Avengers Re-Assemble, Harry Potter Go | I Am Geek
Pingback: Week In Geek- Spider-Man Goes on Vacation & We Return to Hawkins | I Am Geek
Pingback: San Diego Comic-Con- Days 1 & 2 | I Am Geek
Pingback: SDCC Day 3- The Watchmen, Picard Returns, & Marvel's Big Night | I Am Geek
Pingback: Week In Geek- The Return of Tarantino, Tom Hanks's Neighboorhood, & Let's Hear It For The Boys | I Am Geek
Pingback: Week In Geek- Sharks In the Water, Own Endgame, & Hobbs & Shaw | I Am Geek
Pingback: This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things- Sony Takes Back Spider-Man | I Am Geek
Pingback: On the Road With El Camino- A Person of Interest | I Am Geek
Previous Previous post: In Defense of Star Lord
Next Next post: Game of Thrones "The Long Night" Review- Not Today
Archives Select Month January 2020 (9) December 2019 (17) November 2019 (7) October 2019 (11) September 2019 (13) August 2019 (16) July 2019 (20) June 2019 (18) May 2019 (20) April 2019 (20) March 2019 (20) February 2019 (13) January 2019 (19) December 2018 (15) November 2018 (14) October 2018 (17) September 2018 (14) August 2018 (20) July 2018 (17) June 2018 (12) May 2018 (15) April 2018 (17) March 2018 (15) February 2018 (13) January 2018 (16) December 2017 (13) November 2017 (17) October 2017 (16) September 2017 (13) August 2017 (16) July 2017 (15) June 2017 (14) May 2017 (22) April 2017 (18) March 2017 (20) February 2017 (15) January 2017 (19) December 2016 (21) November 2016 (17) October 2016 (13) September 2016 (21) August 2016 (21) July 2016 (14) June 2016 (17) May 2016 (22) April 2016 (24) March 2016 (25) February 2016 (26) January 2016 (27) December 2015 (14)
I Am Geek Tweets

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Welcome to one of a kind, beautifully renovated Jr. 4 home in the heart of Murray Hill Historic District.
This incredibly charming prewar apartment has been renovated to replicate the original 1928 period details. The high ceilings, 7 new double glazed Panorama windows and uncommon layout of the apartment make it feel cozy and bright. The kitchen has been upgraded with Bosch and Jenn-Air appliances and the adjacent dining space can be easily converted into a home office. The windowed bathroom has been restored with Carrera marble floor tiles and vanity, wall tiles from Artistic Tile, Roburn medicine cabinet and polished nickel hardware by Hansgrohe. Additional features include 5 closets, new baseboard moldings, a ceiling fan and Lutron dimmers.
136 E 36th St is an intimate and well-managed Coop building featuring 24 hour doorman, laundry room, a very charming roof deck offering stunning midtown views, private storage space, and super friendly resident super!
Surrounded by landmark buildings including The Morgan Library and Museum, Bryant Park, Korean Town, Traders Joe, and several major transportation hubs including Grand Central.
Dimensions and square footage are estimates.


text:
Q: Update the companyName attribute for an Azure AD user via PowerShell Background
I have an email system (CodeTwo) that creates signatures automatically using AD attributes for users.  Many of my users are synchronised between an on-prem AD and Office 365 / AAD, however newer users are cloud only, that is, they are created in the Office 365 admin portal and are not synchronised with an on-prem user.
The problem
I am using the companyName attribute, which is easily set through the properties dialog of the Windows Admin Tool Active Directory Users & Computers.  I have setup Azure AD Connect to include this attribute in synchronisation.  For my synced users, this setup works as expected - using commands like Get-CsOnleUser and Get-AzureADUser I can see the Company or CompanyName properties are set correctly. For cloud-only users, however, this value is always blank.
I cannot find a way of setting this value - the property is either read-only, or changing the value of the attribute and using Set-CsUser or Set-AzureADUser has no effect.
I noticed that we had some AD Extension properties, in particular one called extension_0000000000000000000000000000000_company - I can set this for the cloud users, but it doesn't seem to affect the object returned from the queries above.  Similarly it is not picked up by the signature stamping system.
The question
How does one set the companyName attribute for users in Azure AD / Office 365? Preferably using PowerShell, but open to any options at this stage?

A: I had the problem and had to ask Microsoft directly. Since February 2019, CompanyName is writable.
Command is
Set-AzureADUserExtension -ObjectId <UPN> -ExtensionName "CompanyName" -ExtensionValue "<VALUE>"

Check my blogpost on the matter for the whole explanation: http://www.yasab.net/azure-ad-update-companyname/

A:
How does one set the companyName attribute for users in Azure AD /
  Office 365?

For now, customer can use Azure AD connect to sync on-prem AD user's attribute company to Azure AD, but can't set company for cloud user, the attribute company is read only.
Here a similar case about you:

This attribute company is inherited from the Display name property of the
  organisation but is not visible in the Graph API directly.

As a workaround, you can create users to your on-prem AD, then sync to Azure AD.
About attribute extension_0000000000000000000000000000000_company, used for mapping attribute.

A: I was able to get the value set by using the set-user cmdlet
set-user JDoe -Company "Fabrikam Inc."

It also populates Get-AzureADUser CompanyName attribute.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
African Cultural Anthropology
American and Canadian Cultural Anthropology
Anthropology, Global
Anthropology, Religion
Anthropology, Theory and Practice
Asian Cultural Anthropology
European Cultural Anthropology
Latin American Cultural Anthropology
Middle Eastern Cultural Anthropology
Methodology and Techniques
Architectural Theory and Criticism
Art Theory and Criticism
Animal Behavior / Behavioral Ecology
Business Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility
Cultural and Historical Geography
Urban Geography
Educational Policy and Politics
Philosophy and Theory of Education
Film, Television and Radio
Imperialism and Colonialism
Russian and Former Soviet Union History
Scottish Studies
You are looking at 1-20 of 392 items
Keywords: frege x
Download result of the search (.pdf)
Columbia University Press (1)
Cornell University Press (1)
Edinburgh University Press (1)
Fordham University Press (1)
Princeton University Press (8)
Stanford University Press (1)
The MIT Press (6)
University of Chicago Press (1)
University of Minnesota Press (1)
Refine By Browse by Subject
[[missing key: search-facet.tree.open-section]] History (3)
History of Science, Technology, and Medicine (2)
[[missing key: search-facet.tree.open-section]] Law (1)
EU Law (1)
Public International Law (1)
[[missing key: search-facet.tree.open-section]] Linguistics (5)
Psycholinguistics / Neurolinguistics / Cognitive Linguistics (1)
Semantics and Pragmatics (5)
Sociolinguistics / Anthropological Linguistics (1)
Theoretical Linguistics (2)
[[missing key: search-facet.tree.open-section]] Literature (5)
20th-century and Contemporary Literature (2)
Criticism/Theory (3)
19th-century and Victorian Literature (2)
[[missing key: search-facet.tree.open-section]] Music (1)
Theory, Analysis, Composition (1)
[[missing key: search-facet.tree.open-section]] Philosophy (371)
Ancient Philosophy (2)
Feminist Philosophy (1)
History of Philosophy (64)
Philosophy of Language (112)
Logic/Philosophy of Mathematics (103)
Metaphysics/Epistemology (55)
Philosophy of Mind (63)
Moral Philosophy (16)
American Philosophy (4)
[[missing key: search-facet.tree.open-section]] Physics (1)
History of Physics (1)
[[missing key: search-facet.tree.open-section]] Political Science (1)
[[missing key: search-facet.tree.open-section]] Society and Culture (1)
1937 1942 1953 1963 1965 1967 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 — 1937 1942 1953 1963 1965 1967 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
Sort by: RelevanceTitle - A to ZTitle - Z to ADate - Old to RecentDate - Recent to OldAuthor - A to ZAuthor - Z to A
Thought's Footing: Themes in Wittgenstein's "Philosophical Investigations"
Charles Travis
10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199291465.001.0001
Philosophy, Philosophy of Language
This book is an enquiry into the relationship between the ways things are and the way we think and talk about them. It is also a study of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations: the author ... More
This book is an enquiry into the relationship between the ways things are and the way we think and talk about them. It is also a study of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations: the author develops his account of certain key themes into a unified view of the work as a whole. His methodological starting-point is to see Wittgenstein's work as a response to Frege's. The central question is: how does thought get its footing? How can the thought that things are a certain way be connected to things being that way? The second key theme is this: a representation of things as being a certain way cannot take the right form for truth-bearing without a background of agreement in judgements: its form must belong to thinkers of a given kind. The third key theme is that the proprietary perceptions of a given sort of thinker, as to what would be a case of judging when there is a particular way for things to be, is not subject to criticism from outside it. The author's distinctive take on such topics as the problem of singular thought, the notion of a proposition, rule-following, sense and nonsense, the possibility of private language, and the representational content of experience is presented.Less
Thought's Footing : Themes in Wittgenstein's "Philosophical Investigations"
Published in print: 2006-08-03
This book is an enquiry into the relationship between the ways things are and the way we think and talk about them. It is also a study of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations: the author develops his account of certain key themes into a unified view of the work as a whole. His methodological starting-point is to see Wittgenstein's work as a response to Frege's. The central question is: how does thought get its footing? How can the thought that things are a certain way be connected to things being that way? The second key theme is this: a representation of things as being a certain way cannot take the right form for truth-bearing without a background of agreement in judgements: its form must belong to thinkers of a given kind. The third key theme is that the proprietary perceptions of a given sort of thinker, as to what would be a case of judging when there is a particular way for things to be, is not subject to criticism from outside it. The author's distinctive take on such topics as the problem of singular thought, the notion of a proposition, rule-following, sense and nonsense, the possibility of private language, and the representational content of experience is presented.
Keywords: Wittgenstein, Frege, truth, judgement
The Nature and Structure of Content
Jeffrey C. King
Belief in propositions has had a long and distinguished history in analytic philosophy. Three of the founding fathers of analytic philosophy, Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell, and G. E. Moore, ... More
Belief in propositions has had a long and distinguished history in analytic philosophy. Three of the founding fathers of analytic philosophy, Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell, and G. E. Moore, believed in propositions. Many philosophers since then have shared this belief; and the belief is widely, though certainly not universally, accepted among philosophers today. Among contemporary philosophers who believe in propositions, many, and perhaps even most, take them to be structured entities with individuals, properties, and relations as constituents. For example, the proposition that 'Glenn loves Tracy' has Glenn, the loving relation, and Tracy as constituents. What is it, then, that binds these constituents together and imposes structure on them? And if the proposition that 'Glenn loves Tracy' is distinct from the proposition that 'Tracy loves Glenn' yet both have the same constituents, what is it about the way these constituents are structured or bound together that makes them two different propositions? This book formulates an account of the metaphysical nature of propositions, and provides fresh answers to the above questions. In addition to explaining what it is that binds together the constituents of structured propositions and imposes structure on them, the book deals with some of the standard objections to accounts of propositions: it shows that there is no mystery about what propositions are; that given certain minimal assumptions, it follows that they exist; and that on this approach, we can see how and why propositions manage to have truth conditions and represent the world as being a certain way. The book also contains a detailed account of the nature of tense and modality, and provides a solution to the paradox of analysis.Less
Belief in propositions has had a long and distinguished history in analytic philosophy. Three of the founding fathers of analytic philosophy, Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell, and G. E. Moore, believed in propositions. Many philosophers since then have shared this belief; and the belief is widely, though certainly not universally, accepted among philosophers today. Among contemporary philosophers who believe in propositions, many, and perhaps even most, take them to be structured entities with individuals, properties, and relations as constituents. For example, the proposition that 'Glenn loves Tracy' has Glenn, the loving relation, and Tracy as constituents. What is it, then, that binds these constituents together and imposes structure on them? And if the proposition that 'Glenn loves Tracy' is distinct from the proposition that 'Tracy loves Glenn' yet both have the same constituents, what is it about the way these constituents are structured or bound together that makes them two different propositions? This book formulates an account of the metaphysical nature of propositions, and provides fresh answers to the above questions. In addition to explaining what it is that binds together the constituents of structured propositions and imposes structure on them, the book deals with some of the standard objections to accounts of propositions: it shows that there is no mystery about what propositions are; that given certain minimal assumptions, it follows that they exist; and that on this approach, we can see how and why propositions manage to have truth conditions and represent the world as being a certain way. The book also contains a detailed account of the nature of tense and modality, and provides a solution to the paradox of analysis.
Keywords: propositions, analytical philosophy, Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell, G. E. Moore, constituents, metaphysics, tense, modality
Reason's Nearest Kin: Philosophies of Arithmetic from Kant to Carnap
Michael Potter
Philosophy, Logic/Philosophy of Mathematics
This book is a critical examination of the astonishing progress made in the philosophical study of the properties of the natural numbers from the 1880s to the 1930s. It reassesses the brilliant ... More
This book is a critical examination of the astonishing progress made in the philosophical study of the properties of the natural numbers from the 1880s to the 1930s. It reassesses the brilliant innovations of Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, and others, which transformed philosophy as well as the understanding of mathematics. The book argues that through the problem of arithmetic participates in the larger puzzle of the relationship between thought, language, experience, and the world, we can distinguish accounts that look to each of these to supply the content we require: those that involve the structure of our experience of the world; those that explicitly involve our grasp of a 'third realm' of abstract objects distinct from the concrete objects of the empirical world and the ideas of the author's private Gedankenwelt; those that appeal to something non-physical that is nevertheless an aspect of reality in harmony with which the physical aspect of the world is configured; and finally those that involve only our grasp of language.Less
Reason's Nearest Kin : Philosophies of Arithmetic from Kant to Carnap
This book is a critical examination of the astonishing progress made in the philosophical study of the properties of the natural numbers from the 1880s to the 1930s. It reassesses the brilliant innovations of Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, and others, which transformed philosophy as well as the understanding of mathematics. The book argues that through the problem of arithmetic participates in the larger puzzle of the relationship between thought, language, experience, and the world, we can distinguish accounts that look to each of these to supply the content we require: those that involve the structure of our experience of the world; those that explicitly involve our grasp of a 'third realm' of abstract objects distinct from the concrete objects of the empirical world and the ideas of the author's private Gedankenwelt; those that appeal to something non-physical that is nevertheless an aspect of reality in harmony with which the physical aspect of the world is configured; and finally those that involve only our grasp of language.
Keywords: mathematics, arithmetic, Kant, Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, Deekind, Carnap, Ramsey, Gödel
Wittgenstein's Notes on Logic
Wittgenstein's philosophical career began in 1911 when he went to Cambridge to work with Russell. He compiled the Notes on Logic two years later as a kind of summary of the work he had done so far. ... More
Wittgenstein's philosophical career began in 1911 when he went to Cambridge to work with Russell. He compiled the Notes on Logic two years later as a kind of summary of the work he had done so far. Russell thought that they were 'as good as anything that has ever been done in logic', but he had Wittgenstein himself to explain them to him. Without the benefit of Wittgenstein's explanations, most later scholars have preferred to treat the Notes solely as an interpretative aid in understanding the Tractatus (which draws on them for material), rather than as a philosophical work in their own right. This book demonstrates the philosophical and historical importance of the Notes. By teasing out the meaning of key passages, it shows how many of the most important insights in the Tractatus they contain. It discusses in detail how Wittgenstein arrived at these insights by thinking through ideas he obtained from Russell and Frege. And it uses a blend of biography and philosophy to illuminate the methods Wittgenstein used in his work. The book features the complete text of the Notes in a critical edition, with a detailed discussion of the circumstances in which they were compiled.Less
Wittgenstein's philosophical career began in 1911 when he went to Cambridge to work with Russell. He compiled the Notes on Logic two years later as a kind of summary of the work he had done so far. Russell thought that they were 'as good as anything that has ever been done in logic', but he had Wittgenstein himself to explain them to him. Without the benefit of Wittgenstein's explanations, most later scholars have preferred to treat the Notes solely as an interpretative aid in understanding the Tractatus (which draws on them for material), rather than as a philosophical work in their own right. This book demonstrates the philosophical and historical importance of the Notes. By teasing out the meaning of key passages, it shows how many of the most important insights in the Tractatus they contain. It discusses in detail how Wittgenstein arrived at these insights by thinking through ideas he obtained from Russell and Frege. And it uses a blend of biography and philosophy to illuminate the methods Wittgenstein used in his work. The book features the complete text of the Notes in a critical edition, with a detailed discussion of the circumstances in which they were compiled.
Keywords: Russell, Notes on Logic, Tractatus, Frege, Cambridge
Being For: Evaluating the Semantic Program of Expressivism
Mark Schroeder
Expressivism — the sophisticated contemporary incarnation of the noncognitivist research program of Ayer, Stevenson, and Hare — is no longer the province of metaethicists alone. Its comprehensive ... More
Expressivism — the sophisticated contemporary incarnation of the noncognitivist research program of Ayer, Stevenson, and Hare — is no longer the province of metaethicists alone. Its comprehensive view about the nature of both normative language and normative thought has also recently been applied to many topics elsewhere in philosophy. Yet the semantic commitments of expressivism are still poorly understood and have not been very far developed. Expressivists have not yet even managed to solve the 'negation problem' — to explain why atomic normative sentences are inconsistent with their negations. As a result, it is far from clear that expressivism even could be true. This book evaluates the semantic commitments of expressivism by showing how an expressivist semantics would work, what it can do, and what kind of assumptions would be required, in order for it to do it. Building on a highly general understanding of the basic ideas of expressivism, it argues that expressivists can solve the negation problem — but only in one kind of way. It shows how this insight paves the way for an explanatorily powerful, constructive expressivist semantics, which solves many of what have been taken to be the deepest problems for expressivism, including making unprecedented progress in attacking the well-known Frege-Geach problem for noncognitivist theories. But it also argues that any account which can attain these advantages will face further, even more formidable, obstacles. Expressivism, it is argued, is coherent and interesting, but false.Less
Being For : Evaluating the Semantic Program of Expressivism
Expressivism — the sophisticated contemporary incarnation of the noncognitivist research program of Ayer, Stevenson, and Hare — is no longer the province of metaethicists alone. Its comprehensive view about the nature of both normative language and normative thought has also recently been applied to many topics elsewhere in philosophy. Yet the semantic commitments of expressivism are still poorly understood and have not been very far developed. Expressivists have not yet even managed to solve the 'negation problem' — to explain why atomic normative sentences are inconsistent with their negations. As a result, it is far from clear that expressivism even could be true. This book evaluates the semantic commitments of expressivism by showing how an expressivist semantics would work, what it can do, and what kind of assumptions would be required, in order for it to do it. Building on a highly general understanding of the basic ideas of expressivism, it argues that expressivists can solve the negation problem — but only in one kind of way. It shows how this insight paves the way for an explanatorily powerful, constructive expressivist semantics, which solves many of what have been taken to be the deepest problems for expressivism, including making unprecedented progress in attacking the well-known Frege-Geach problem for noncognitivist theories. But it also argues that any account which can attain these advantages will face further, even more formidable, obstacles. Expressivism, it is argued, is coherent and interesting, but false.
Keywords: noncognitivism, semantics, Frege-Geach problem, metaethics
Propositions, Functions, and Analysis: Selected Essays on Russell's Philosophy
Peter Hylton
Philosophy, History of Philosophy, Logic/Philosophy of Mathematics
The work of Bertrand Russell had a decisive influence on the emergence of analytic philosophy, and on its subsequent development. The essays collected in this volume, by one of the authorities on ... More
The work of Bertrand Russell had a decisive influence on the emergence of analytic philosophy, and on its subsequent development. The essays collected in this volume, by one of the authorities on Russell's philosophy, all aim at recapturing and articulating aspects of Russell's philosophical vision during his most influential and important period, the two decades following his break with Idealism in 1899. One theme of the collection concerns Russell's views about propositions and their analysis, and the relation of those ideas to his rejection of Idealism. Another theme is the development of Russell's logicism, culminating in Whitehead's and Russell's Principia Mathematica, and the author offers a revealing view of the conception of logic that underlies it. Here again there is an emphasis on Russell's argument against Idealism, on the idea that his logicism was a crucial part of that argument. A further focus of the volume is Russell's views about functions and propositional functions. This theme is part of a contrast that the author draws between Russell's general philosophical position and that of Frege; in particular, there is a close parallel with the quite different views that the two philosophers held about the nature of philosophical analysis. The author also sheds light on the much-disputed idea of an operation, which Wittgenstein advances in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.Less
Propositions, Functions, and Analysis : Selected Essays on Russell's Philosophy
The work of Bertrand Russell had a decisive influence on the emergence of analytic philosophy, and on its subsequent development. The essays collected in this volume, by one of the authorities on Russell's philosophy, all aim at recapturing and articulating aspects of Russell's philosophical vision during his most influential and important period, the two decades following his break with Idealism in 1899. One theme of the collection concerns Russell's views about propositions and their analysis, and the relation of those ideas to his rejection of Idealism. Another theme is the development of Russell's logicism, culminating in Whitehead's and Russell's Principia Mathematica, and the author offers a revealing view of the conception of logic that underlies it. Here again there is an emphasis on Russell's argument against Idealism, on the idea that his logicism was a crucial part of that argument. A further focus of the volume is Russell's views about functions and propositional functions. This theme is part of a contrast that the author draws between Russell's general philosophical position and that of Frege; in particular, there is a close parallel with the quite different views that the two philosophers held about the nature of philosophical analysis. The author also sheds light on the much-disputed idea of an operation, which Wittgenstein advances in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.
Keywords: Bertrand Russell, analytic philosophy, Idealism, propositional functions, logicism, Whitehead, Principia Mathematica, conception of logic, Frege, Wittgenstein
Objectivity and the Parochial
Philosophy, Aesthetics
Thought, to be thought at all, must be about a world independent of us. But thinking takes capacities for thought, which inevitably shape thought's objects. What would count as something being ... More
Thought, to be thought at all, must be about a world independent of us. But thinking takes capacities for thought, which inevitably shape thought's objects. What would count as something being green—so when it would be true that it was—is identified, somehow, by what those who have being green in mind, are prepared to recognize. Which can make it seem that what is true, and what not, is not independent of us. In which case our thought is not really about an independent world—so not really thought at all. Two apparent truisms thus form an apparent paradox. Much philosophy, from Locke to Quine, from Kant to Frege to Wittgenstein, to Putnam, to John McDowell, is a response to this, often dominated by it. This book contains eleven chapters, each working in its own way towards dissolving this air of paradox, and towards giving the role of the parochial in our thought—features of our thought which need not belong to all thought—its proper, unthreatening, due.Less
Thought, to be thought at all, must be about a world independent of us. But thinking takes capacities for thought, which inevitably shape thought's objects. What would count as something being green—so when it would be true that it was—is identified, somehow, by what those who have being green in mind, are prepared to recognize. Which can make it seem that what is true, and what not, is not independent of us. In which case our thought is not really about an independent world—so not really thought at all. Two apparent truisms thus form an apparent paradox. Much philosophy, from Locke to Quine, from Kant to Frege to Wittgenstein, to Putnam, to John McDowell, is a response to this, often dominated by it. This book contains eleven chapters, each working in its own way towards dissolving this air of paradox, and towards giving the role of the parochial in our thought—features of our thought which need not belong to all thought—its proper, unthreatening, due.
Keywords: Frege, Wittgenstein, Putnam, truth, propositions, representation, psychologism
Frege's Conception of Logic
Patricia A. Blanchette
Frege's Coneption of Logic explores the relationship between Frege's understanding of conceptual analysis and his understanding of logic. It is argued that the fruitfulness of Frege's ... More
Frege's Coneption of Logic explores the relationship between Frege's understanding of conceptual analysis and his understanding of logic. It is argued that the fruitfulness of Frege's conception of logic, and the illuminating differences between that conception and those more modern views that have largely supplanted it, are best understood against the backdrop of a clear account of the role of conceptual analysis in logical investigation. The first part of the book locates the role of conceptual analysis in Frege's logicist project. It is argued that, despite a number of difficulties, Frege's use of analysis in the service of logicism is a powerful and coherent tool. As a result of coming to grips with his use of that tool, we can see that there is, despite appearances, no conflict between Frege's intention to demonstrate the grounds of ordinary arithmetic and the fact that the numerals of his derived sentences fail to co-refer with ordinary numerals. The second part of the book explores the resulting conception of logic itself, and some of the straightforward ways in which Frege's conception differs from its now-familiar descendants. In particular, it's argued that consistency, as Frege understands it, differs significantly from the kind of consistency demonstrable via the construction of models. To appreciate this difference is to appreciate the extent to which Frege was right in his debate with Hilbert over consistency- and independence-proofs in geometry. For similar reasons, modern results such as the completeness of formal systems and the categoricity of theories do not have for Frege the same importance they are commonly taken to have by his post-Tarskian descendants. These differences, together with the coherence of Frege's position, provide reason for caution with respect to the appeal to formal systems and their properties in the treatment of fundamental logical properties and relations.Less
Frege's Coneption of Logic explores the relationship between Frege's understanding of conceptual analysis and his understanding of logic. It is argued that the fruitfulness of Frege's conception of logic, and the illuminating differences between that conception and those more modern views that have largely supplanted it, are best understood against the backdrop of a clear account of the role of conceptual analysis in logical investigation. The first part of the book locates the role of conceptual analysis in Frege's logicist project. It is argued that, despite a number of difficulties, Frege's use of analysis in the service of logicism is a powerful and coherent tool. As a result of coming to grips with his use of that tool, we can see that there is, despite appearances, no conflict between Frege's intention to demonstrate the grounds of ordinary arithmetic and the fact that the numerals of his derived sentences fail to co-refer with ordinary numerals. The second part of the book explores the resulting conception of logic itself, and some of the straightforward ways in which Frege's conception differs from its now-familiar descendants. In particular, it's argued that consistency, as Frege understands it, differs significantly from the kind of consistency demonstrable via the construction of models. To appreciate this difference is to appreciate the extent to which Frege was right in his debate with Hilbert over consistency- and independence-proofs in geometry. For similar reasons, modern results such as the completeness of formal systems and the categoricity of theories do not have for Frege the same importance they are commonly taken to have by his post-Tarskian descendants. These differences, together with the coherence of Frege's position, provide reason for caution with respect to the appeal to formal systems and their properties in the treatment of fundamental logical properties and relations.
Keywords: Frege, logicism, conceptual analysis, history of logic, history of analytic philosophy, foundations of arithmetic
in Frege's Conception of Logic
This chapter lays out the central theme of the book, the interaction between Frege's understanding of conceptual analysis and his understanding of logic. It also sketches the contents of the ... More
This chapter lays out the central theme of the book, the interaction between Frege's understanding of conceptual analysis and his understanding of logic. It also sketches the contents of the succeeding chapters.Less
This chapter lays out the central theme of the book, the interaction between Frege's understanding of conceptual analysis and his understanding of logic. It also sketches the contents of the succeeding chapters.
Keywords: Frege, logicism, conceptual analysis, history of logic
Reference without Referents
R. M. Sainsbury
10.1093/0199241805.001.0001
This book concerns the nature of reference, and the theory it develops is intermediate between direct reference theories and descriptivist theories. A guiding thought is that just as truth conditions ... More
This book concerns the nature of reference, and the theory it develops is intermediate between direct reference theories and descriptivist theories. A guiding thought is that just as truth conditions (rather than truth values) can throw light on the meaning of sentences so can reference conditions (rather than referents) throw light on the meaning of referring expressions. A reference condition need not be a descriptive condition, and it need not be satisfied. The first of these points marks the divergence from descriptivist theories, and the second, from direct reference theories. This idea is applied to proper names, pronouns, and definite descriptions (singular, plural and mass); problems of existential and fictional sentences are addressed; and, in the final chapter, an analogue of the main idea is applied to mental content.Less
This book concerns the nature of reference, and the theory it develops is intermediate between direct reference theories and descriptivist theories. A guiding thought is that just as truth conditions (rather than truth values) can throw light on the meaning of sentences so can reference conditions (rather than referents) throw light on the meaning of referring expressions. A reference condition need not be a descriptive condition, and it need not be satisfied. The first of these points marks the divergence from descriptivist theories, and the second, from direct reference theories. This idea is applied to proper names, pronouns, and definite descriptions (singular, plural and mass); problems of existential and fictional sentences are addressed; and, in the final chapter, an analogue of the main idea is applied to mental content.
Keywords: definite descriptions, demonstratives, empty names, fiction, Frege, pronouns, reference, Russell, semantics, truth conditions
Frege on Definitions: A Case Study of Semantic Content
John Horty
This book explores the difficulties presented for Gottlob Frege's semantic theory, as well as its modern descendents, by the treatment of defined expressions. The book begins by focusing on the ... More
This book explores the difficulties presented for Gottlob Frege's semantic theory, as well as its modern descendents, by the treatment of defined expressions. The book begins by focusing on the psychological constraints governing Frege's notion of sense, or meaning, and argues that, given these constraints, even the treatment of simple stipulative definitions led Frege to important difficulties. This book suggests ways out of these difficulties that are both philosophically and logically plausible and Fregean in spirit. This discussion is then connected to a number of more familiar topics, such as indexicality and the discussion of concepts in recent theories of mind and language. The latter part of the book, after introducing a simple semantic model of senses as procedures, considers the problems that definitions present for Frege's idea that the sense of an expression should mirror its grammatical structure. The requirement can be satisfied, the book argues, only if defined expressions—and incomplete expressions as well—are assigned senses of their own, rather than treated contextually. The book then explores one way in which these senses might be reified within the procedural model, drawing on ideas from work in the semantics of computer programming languages. With its combination of technical semantics and history of philosophy, the book tackles some of the hardest questions in the philosophy of language.Less
Frege on Definitions : A Case Study of Semantic Content
This book explores the difficulties presented for Gottlob Frege's semantic theory, as well as its modern descendents, by the treatment of defined expressions. The book begins by focusing on the psychological constraints governing Frege's notion of sense, or meaning, and argues that, given these constraints, even the treatment of simple stipulative definitions led Frege to important difficulties. This book suggests ways out of these difficulties that are both philosophically and logically plausible and Fregean in spirit. This discussion is then connected to a number of more familiar topics, such as indexicality and the discussion of concepts in recent theories of mind and language. The latter part of the book, after introducing a simple semantic model of senses as procedures, considers the problems that definitions present for Frege's idea that the sense of an expression should mirror its grammatical structure. The requirement can be satisfied, the book argues, only if defined expressions—and incomplete expressions as well—are assigned senses of their own, rather than treated contextually. The book then explores one way in which these senses might be reified within the procedural model, drawing on ideas from work in the semantics of computer programming languages. With its combination of technical semantics and history of philosophy, the book tackles some of the hardest questions in the philosophy of language.
Keywords: Frege, semantics, defined expressions, indexicality, computer programming, mind and language
Logical Properties: Identity, Existence, Predication, Necessity, Truth
Colin McGinn
Philosophy, General
This book discusses the nature of identity, existence, predication, necessity, and truth. Its main claims are that identity, existence, and truth are logical properties, that predicates are singular ... More
This book discusses the nature of identity, existence, predication, necessity, and truth. Its main claims are that identity, existence, and truth are logical properties, that predicates are singular terms that refer to properties, and that necessity (and other modalities) are modes of instantiation of properties by objects. The book develops a realist anti‐naturalist stance on logical properties, which takes logical notions at face value, and refuses to reduce them to other notions. Two further contentions central to this work are, first, that the quantifier has been overrated as an instrument of logico‐linguistic analysis; and secondly, that past attempts to define logical notions such as identity or existence have been largely unsuccessful.Less
Logical Properties : Identity, Existence, Predication, Necessity, Truth
This book discusses the nature of identity, existence, predication, necessity, and truth. Its main claims are that identity, existence, and truth are logical properties, that predicates are singular terms that refer to properties, and that necessity (and other modalities) are modes of instantiation of properties by objects. The book develops a realist anti‐naturalist stance on logical properties, which takes logical notions at face value, and refuses to reduce them to other notions. Two further contentions central to this work are, first, that the quantifier has been overrated as an instrument of logico‐linguistic analysis; and secondly, that past attempts to define logical notions such as identity or existence have been largely unsuccessful.
Keywords: existence, Frege, identity, logic, logical properties, metaphysics, Colin McGinn, necessity, predication, Quine, realism, Russell, truth
Facing Facts
Stephen Neale
This book is an original examination of attempts to dislodge a cornerstone of modern philosophy: the idea that our thoughts and utterances are representations of slices of reality. Representations ... More
This book is an original examination of attempts to dislodge a cornerstone of modern philosophy: the idea that our thoughts and utterances are representations of slices of reality. Representations that are accurate are usually said to be true, to correspond to the facts—this is the foundation of correspondence theories of truth. A number of prominent philosophers have tried to undermine the idea that propositions, facts, and correspondence can play any useful role in philosophy, and formal arguments have been advanced to demonstrate that, under seemingly uncontroversial conditions, such entities collapse into an undifferentiated unity. The demise of individual facts is meant to herald the dawn of a new era in philosophy, in which debates about scepticism, realism, subjectivity, representational and computational theories of mind, possible worlds, and divergent conceptual schemes that represent reality in different ways to different persons, periods, or cultures evaporate through lack of subject matter. By carefully untangling a host of intersecting metaphysical, epistemological, semantic, and logical issues, and providing original analyses of key aspects of the work of Donald Davidson, Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell, and Kurt Gödel (to each of whom a chapter is dedicated), Stephen Neale demonstrates that arguments for the collapse of facts are considerably more complex and interesting than ever imagined. A number of deep semantic facts emerge along with a powerful proof: while it is technically possible to avoid the collapse of facts, rescue the idea of representations of reality, and thereby face anew the problems raised by the sceptic or the relativist, doing so requires making some tough semantic decisions about predicates and descriptions. It is simply impossible, Neale shows, to invoke representations, facts, states, or propositions without making hard choices—choices that may send many philosophers scurrying back to the drawing board. The book will be crucial to future work in metaphysics, the philosophy of language and mind, and logic, and will have profound implications far beyond.Less
This book is an original examination of attempts to dislodge a cornerstone of modern philosophy: the idea that our thoughts and utterances are representations of slices of reality. Representations that are accurate are usually said to be true, to correspond to the facts—this is the foundation of correspondence theories of truth. A number of prominent philosophers have tried to undermine the idea that propositions, facts, and correspondence can play any useful role in philosophy, and formal arguments have been advanced to demonstrate that, under seemingly uncontroversial conditions, such entities collapse into an undifferentiated unity. The demise of individual facts is meant to herald the dawn of a new era in philosophy, in which debates about scepticism, realism, subjectivity, representational and computational theories of mind, possible worlds, and divergent conceptual schemes that represent reality in different ways to different persons, periods, or cultures evaporate through lack of subject matter. By carefully untangling a host of intersecting metaphysical, epistemological, semantic, and logical issues, and providing original analyses of key aspects of the work of Donald Davidson, Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell, and Kurt Gödel (to each of whom a chapter is dedicated), Stephen Neale demonstrates that arguments for the collapse of facts are considerably more complex and interesting than ever imagined. A number of deep semantic facts emerge along with a powerful proof: while it is technically possible to avoid the collapse of facts, rescue the idea of representations of reality, and thereby face anew the problems raised by the sceptic or the relativist, doing so requires making some tough semantic decisions about predicates and descriptions. It is simply impossible, Neale shows, to invoke representations, facts, states, or propositions without making hard choices—choices that may send many philosophers scurrying back to the drawing board. The book will be crucial to future work in metaphysics, the philosophy of language and mind, and logic, and will have profound implications far beyond.
Keywords: collapse of facts, computational theory of mind, correspondence, Donald Davidson, demise of individual facts, epistemology, facts, Gottlob Frege, Kurt Gödel, logic, metaphysics, modern philosophy, propositions, realism, reality, relativism, representational theory of mind, representations of reality, Bertrand Russell, scepticism, semantics, subjectivity, theories of mind
The Seas of Language
Michael Dummett
The book contains articles in metaphysics and philosophy of language written between 1975 and 1992. Dummett defends the verificationist theory of meaning, according to which in order to know the ... More
The book contains articles in metaphysics and philosophy of language written between 1975 and 1992. Dummett defends the verificationist theory of meaning, according to which in order to know the meaning of a statement one must be in possession of a procedure to verify it. He also argues for the link between bivalence and the metaphysical doctrine of realism. Other topics discussed include refutation of instrumentalism, mathematical applicability, backward causation, and the analysis of the concept of existence.Less
The book contains articles in metaphysics and philosophy of language written between 1975 and 1992. Dummett defends the verificationist theory of meaning, according to which in order to know the meaning of a statement one must be in possession of a procedure to verify it. He also argues for the link between bivalence and the metaphysical doctrine of realism. Other topics discussed include refutation of instrumentalism, mathematical applicability, backward causation, and the analysis of the concept of existence.
Keywords: anti‐realism, bivalence, causation, Davidson, Michael Dummett, Frege, meaning, Quine, realism, theory of meaning, verificationism, Wittgenstein
Frege and Other Philosophers
10.1093/019823628X.001.0001
Philosophy, History of Philosophy
This book deals with Frege's philosophy by comparing and contrasting his views with those of other philosophers, mostly contemporary with him.
Keywords: analytic philosophy, Dummett, Frege, philosophy of language, philosophy of mathematics
Formal Ontology and Logical Syntax
in The Four-Category Ontology: A Metaphysical Foundation for Natural Science
Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology
Traditional formal logic as developed by Fred Sommers is compared and contrasted with the modern quantified predicate logic that we owe to Gottlob Frege and Bertrand Russell; the latter is argued to ... More
Traditional formal logic as developed by Fred Sommers is compared and contrasted with the modern quantified predicate logic that we owe to Gottlob Frege and Bertrand Russell; the latter is argued to be implicitly committed to a two-category ontology of particulars and universals. A system of sortal logic is described, which exhibits some features of traditional formal logic and some of modern quantified predicate logic, such as its deployment of a symbol for identity. It is argued that this system represents more perspicuously than other systems the ontological distinctions of the four-category ontology, and that this counts as a distinct advantage in its favour.Less
Traditional formal logic as developed by Fred Sommers is compared and contrasted with the modern quantified predicate logic that we owe to Gottlob Frege and Bertrand Russell; the latter is argued to be implicitly committed to a two-category ontology of particulars and universals. A system of sortal logic is described, which exhibits some features of traditional formal logic and some of modern quantified predicate logic, such as its deployment of a symbol for identity. It is argued that this system represents more perspicuously than other systems the ontological distinctions of the four-category ontology, and that this counts as a distinct advantage in its favour.
Keywords: categories, Gottlob Frege, identity, ontology, quantified predicate logic, Bertrand Russell, sortal logic, Fred Sommers, traditional formal logic
The Concept of an Object in Formal Ontology
The formal ontological concept of an object is explicated and contrasted with that of a property. F. P. Ramsey's objections to this distinction are challenged. The sense in which objects possess an ... More
The formal ontological concept of an object is explicated and contrasted with that of a property. F. P. Ramsey's objections to this distinction are challenged. The sense in which objects possess an individuality not exhibited by entities of certain other types is discussed. The object/property distinction is distinguished from that between universals and particulars. The ontological status of events and processes, and that of abstract entities such as numbers, are examined. Gottlob Frege's treatment of number and his object/concept distinction are criticized, and an alternative account of the ontological status of concepts is advanced.Less
The formal ontological concept of an object is explicated and contrasted with that of a property. F. P. Ramsey's objections to this distinction are challenged. The sense in which objects possess an individuality not exhibited by entities of certain other types is discussed. The object/property distinction is distinguished from that between universals and particulars. The ontological status of events and processes, and that of abstract entities such as numbers, are examined. Gottlob Frege's treatment of number and his object/concept distinction are criticized, and an alternative account of the ontological status of concepts is advanced.
Keywords: concepts, events, Gottlob Frege, individuality, numbers, objects, properties, F. P. Ramsey, universals
The Magic Prism: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language
Howard Wettstein
This book presents the development of an anti-Fregean conception on the philosophy of language. It argues that Wittgenstein not only anticipated the important features of the anti-Fregean approach, ... More
This book presents the development of an anti-Fregean conception on the philosophy of language. It argues that Wittgenstein not only anticipated the important features of the anti-Fregean approach, but provided a deeper and more satisfying rationale than recent works. Where Wittgenstein sharply diverged from the anti-Fregeans, he pointed the way forward.Less
The Magic Prism : An Essay in the Philosophy of Language
This book presents the development of an anti-Fregean conception on the philosophy of language. It argues that Wittgenstein not only anticipated the important features of the anti-Fregean approach, but provided a deeper and more satisfying rationale than recent works. Where Wittgenstein sharply diverged from the anti-Fregeans, he pointed the way forward.
Keywords: Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, philosophy of language
Wittgenstein: Connections and Controversies
P. M. S Hacker
Consists of 13 thematically linked essays on different aspects of the philosophy of Wittgenstein, by one of the leading commentators on his work. After an opening overview of Wittgenstein's ... More
Consists of 13 thematically linked essays on different aspects of the philosophy of Wittgenstein, by one of the leading commentators on his work. After an opening overview of Wittgenstein's philosophy, the following essays fall into two classes: those that investigate connections between the philosophy of Wittgenstein and other philosophers and philosophical trends, and those which enter into some of the controversies that, over the last two decades, have raged over the interpretation of one aspect or another of Wittgenstein's writings. The connections that are explored include the relationship between Wittgenstein's philosophy and the humanistic and hermeneutic traditions in European philosophy, Wittgenstein's response to Frazer's Golden Bough and the interpretation of ritual actions, his attitude towards and criticisms of Frege (both in the Tractatus and in the later philosophy), the relationship between his ideas and those of members of the Vienna Circle on the matter of ostensive definition, and a comparison of Carnap's conception of the elimination of metaphysics and of Strawson's rehabilitation of metaphysics with Wittgenstein's later criticisms of metaphysics. The controversies into which Hacker enters include the Diamond–Conant interpretation of the Tractatus (which is shown to be inconsistent with the text of the Tractatus and with Wittgenstein's explanations of and comments on his book), Winch's interpretation of the Tractatus conception of names, Kripke's interpretation of Wittgenstein's discussion of following a rule (which is demonstrated to be remote from Wittgenstein's intentions), and Malcolm's defence of the idea that Wittgenstein claimed that mastery of a language logically requires that the language be shared with other speakers. These far-ranging essays, several of them difficult to find or not published elsewhere, shed much light on different aspects of Wittgenstein's thought, and on the controversies that it has stimulated.Less
Consists of 13 thematically linked essays on different aspects of the philosophy of Wittgenstein, by one of the leading commentators on his work. After an opening overview of Wittgenstein's philosophy, the following essays fall into two classes: those that investigate connections between the philosophy of Wittgenstein and other philosophers and philosophical trends, and those which enter into some of the controversies that, over the last two decades, have raged over the interpretation of one aspect or another of Wittgenstein's writings. The connections that are explored include the relationship between Wittgenstein's philosophy and the humanistic and hermeneutic traditions in European philosophy, Wittgenstein's response to Frazer's Golden Bough and the interpretation of ritual actions, his attitude towards and criticisms of Frege (both in the Tractatus and in the later philosophy), the relationship between his ideas and those of members of the Vienna Circle on the matter of ostensive definition, and a comparison of Carnap's conception of the elimination of metaphysics and of Strawson's rehabilitation of metaphysics with Wittgenstein's later criticisms of metaphysics. The controversies into which Hacker enters include the Diamond–Conant interpretation of the Tractatus (which is shown to be inconsistent with the text of the Tractatus and with Wittgenstein's explanations of and comments on his book), Winch's interpretation of the Tractatus conception of names, Kripke's interpretation of Wittgenstein's discussion of following a rule (which is demonstrated to be remote from Wittgenstein's intentions), and Malcolm's defence of the idea that Wittgenstein claimed that mastery of a language logically requires that the language be shared with other speakers. These far-ranging essays, several of them difficult to find or not published elsewhere, shed much light on different aspects of Wittgenstein's thought, and on the controversies that it has stimulated.
Keywords: C. Diamond, frege, J.G. Frazer, metaphysics, P.F. Strawson, private language argument, R. Carnap, S. Kripke, tractatus, understanding and explanation, wittgenstein
in Thought's Footing: Themes in Wittgenstein's "Philosophical Investigations"
This introductory chapter begins with an explanation of the central methodological principle that to understand what Wittgenstein is up to at any given point in the Philosophical Investigations one ... More
This introductory chapter begins with an explanation of the central methodological principle that to understand what Wittgenstein is up to at any given point in the Philosophical Investigations one should look to Frege: how what Wittgenstein says may be a reaction to something Frege said. It describes a closely knit line of thought as it develops in the Investigations. An overview of the chapters included in the volume is also presented.Less
This introductory chapter begins with an explanation of the central methodological principle that to understand what Wittgenstein is up to at any given point in the Philosophical Investigations one should look to Frege: how what Wittgenstein says may be a reaction to something Frege said. It describes a closely knit line of thought as it develops in the Investigations. An overview of the chapters included in the volume is also presented.
Keywords: Wittgenstein, Frege, Philosophical Investigations


text:
(Solomon)
Comics DC Universe
Null (and his pal Void) were seen in 1983/1984 World's Finest Comics storylines.
It must be admitted that they are rather obscure.
Real Name: Solomon (last name unrevealed).
Marital Status: Separated.
Known Relatives: Wife (Name unrevealed), Children (Names, number, and genders unrevealed).
Group Affiliation: Null and Void.
Base Of Operations: The suburbs outside Gotham City.
Height: 6'2" (as Null), 5'11" (as Solomon). Weight: 265lbs (as Null), 200 lbs (as Solomon). Age: Early 60s.
Eyes: White (as Null), Blue (as Solomon). Hair: None (as Null), Grey, balding on top (as Solomon).
As Null, Sol has the power to restrict the senses of any target within range. He may do this selectively, allowing his target to function normally and granting himself and / or his companion Void the Invisibility Power. Or he may exercise his powers less subtly leaving his target bereft of all sensory input.
Though he can attempt to block all senses through one attack, when presented by formidable minds like those of Superman or Batman he often finds it easier to restrict one sense at a time. He usually begins with sight, followed by hearing, scent, touch, and, presumably, taste.
In addition, Null may use his powers to remain undetected by electronic surveillance equipment.
X'ult's tattoo
Null, Void, Swordfish, and Barracuda all bear on their palms the strange symbol that X'ult wears on his chest.
When any of these symbols contacts another, the bearers (with the exception of X'ult who always retains his powers) transform into their super-powered forms. This transformation expires after 10 minutes. It can be reset by once more bringing the symbols into contact before the time limit has expired.
In his non-powered form, Solomon is an extremely poor businessman, sailor, and judge of character.
Centuries ago during the age of piracy, an alien craft landed on the Caribbean island of Haiti. Among the crew of extraterrestrial explorers was X'ult, an aide to the second in command.
X'ult was consumed by the desire to conquer. When the craft left Earth after its survey, the alien hid in the jungles of the island. To enable himself to survive, X'ult arranged for one of the crew's environmental adapters to be ejected from the ship when it took off.
The adapter was damaged on its decent to Earth, its metallic skin melting into slag. By the time the machine reached the island it looked like nothing so much as a large stone. One detail did survive, however. It was a strange symbol on one of the "stone's" faces.
Jump ahead in time to World War II. A young man named Solomon accompanies his father on a business trip to Cuba. Sol "just didn't have a head for business" so he chose to spend his time learning to sail.
While out in his sailboat he was caught in a sudden squall and blown off course. He washed up on shore at Martinique, a Caribbean island under the control of the Vichy French and their Nazi masters.
The authorities discovered that Sol was the son of an American businessman. Thus, they held him captive in an attempt to force his father into making business deals with them.
It was while being held prisoner on Martinique that Sol first met Peter McBryde, a smuggler and con artist. McBryde was on good terms with the French and Germans. He had been hired by Sol's father to rescue him and, after plying the guards with American booze, the two men made their escape.
McBryde's plane was riddled with bullets during their flight to freedom. As a consequence, the pair were forced to crash land in somewhere in Haiti. The two men were taken prisoner by the local natives and prepared for a voodoo rite. It was the test of the Sacred Stone.
The Sacred Stone, of course, was X'ult's environmental adapter that the natives worshipped as some sort of divine artifact.
The men were forced to place their right palms on the stone. Although they experienced no pain their palms were branded with the strange symbol of the stone. The pair shook hands on their short friendship, sure that they were about to die together. When the tattoos on their palms touched they transformed.
Solomon and McBryde became Null and Void. Instinctively using their powers in their own defense, Sol and Peter escaped the natives. They were picked up on the shore by a passing ship. McBryde collected his money from Sol's father and the pair went their separate ways.
A year later Solomon's father died and Sol inherited the family business. Unfortunately, Sol still did not have any business sense and the company began to flounder.
Purely by accident, or so he thought at the time, he met Peter McBryde again in Vienna after the war. McBryde asked Sol to help him steal a shipment of Nazi gold bound for Russia. Believing the money he could steal as Null was his only chance to keep the business alive, Sol agreed.
In their guises as Null and Void, the pair began a long criminal career. Sol used the ill-gotten gains to keep his floundering business afloat. McBryde thrived on the excitement.
Decades later, Sol ended their partnership refusing to commit anymore thefts. McBryde, for his part, bided his time.
Eventually, Sol's business troubles resurfaced. Facing an IRS audit, he contacted his old partner Peter McBryde. McBryde jumped at the chance to resume his criminal career. He persuaded Sol to go for a splashy, high profile crime. The pair would steal an item from an exhibit of trophies and mementos on loan from Superman's Fortress of Solitude.
The centerpiece of the exhibit was a locket bearing an image of Lara, Superman's biological mother. Null and Void stole the locket and battled Superman and his World's Finest partner Batman at the exhibit hall. Sol made good his escape but McBryde, now in his non-powered form, was captured only blocks away by the two heroes.
McBryde refused to name his accomplice. At his trial, the criminal defended himself. Even though both Superman and Batman took the stand, McBryde won his freedom.
Wrath of the IRS
Not long after, he was contacted by Sol. His life had completely fallen apart. Following the IRS audit that prompted his return to crime in the first place, Sol's wife and children left him. The IRS took his home for non-payment of taxes. Despondent and financially ruined, Sol needed another big Null and Void payday to set things right.
The pair decided to steal an object found off the coast of Costa Rica. It was a strange figure encased in an ice-like substance and sporting the same symbol on its chest as they bore on their palms. Under super-hypnosis, Batman remembered the strange palm symbols as well. Thus, he made the connection to the encased figure.
The figure in the ice-like substance was X'ult who had accidentally imprisoned himself with his own time-congealing powers.
Wrath of X'ult
In addition, Superman discovered another pair of figures encased in the same time-gel. These were a woman and a man, both in pirate garb, reaching out to clasp hands. Naturally, their palms bore the same strange symbol possessed by Null, Void, and X'ult.
Void sent the X'ult figure to The Void. But, soon after, Sol turned on his partner and McBryde was forced to flee into The Void himself.
There, X'ult escaped his time-gel prison. Void chose to ally himself with the alien. Meanwhile, Null and Batman had succeeded in releasing the male figure. He was a pirate hero named Swordfish. X'ult and Void returned from The Void and went on a rampage in the Caribbean.
The new team of X'ult and Void were able to release the female figure, Abigail Kent. She transformed into the pirate heroine, Barracuda. X'ult gained mental control over Barracuda and the trio battled Batman, Superman, and a reformed Null.
In the end, Superman succeeded in sending X'ult, Swordfish, and Barracuda back in time. Sol vowed to confess to every crime perpetrated by he and McBryde.
Null and Void have not been seen since. No doubt, McBryde was unable to talk his way out of this conviction !
As Null, Solomon is a large, black, man-shaped form with a swirling white "vortex" in his chest area. His eyes and mouth are indistinctly-shaped white forms on his face.
In his non-powered guise, Solomon favors business suits and a glum, beaten expression.
Solomon is a reluctant criminal. Even with the powers available to him as Null, he would prefer to avoid trouble. Unfortunately for Sol he is both an extremely poor legitimate businessman and a weak-willed follower easily manipulated by his friend Peter McBryde.
By the end of Null and Void's second encounter with Superman and Batman, Solomon has become more assertive. He has lost much of his stomach for the criminal lifestyle and sides with the World's Finest team out of a desire to get this whole mess behind him.
"I want to give the treasure back, Peter ! I'm not an international adventurer like you ! Batman knows who I am now ! I don't want him hounding me back in the States ! I'd sooner face the IRS than The Batman !"
Parts of the two Null and Void / World's Finest Heroes encounters are, at best, unlikely in the post-Crisis DC Universe. Still, the pair could still be easily updated to fall in line with current continuity.
This would require either removing the wartime portion of their origin or granting them a Reduced Aging Advantage. Null, and his roguish partner Void, present a perfect opportunity to run a straightforward "Audacious Theft" style adventure.
Int: 05 Wil: 04 Min: 04 Occupation: Businessman / Reluctant Thief
Invisibility: 15, Sensory Block: 16
Invisibility is Usable on Others ; Invisibility affects all senses.
Invisibility extends to electronic surveillance equipment such as electric eyes, motion sensors, etc..
Null may choose to use Sensory Block on only one of a target's senses (by doing so, he receives a -1 CS to the OV / RV of the Sensory Block attempt).
Insta-Change.
Void (High).
Alter Ego (Partially Controllable ; See X'ult's Tattoo below), Secret Identity, Strange Appearance.
Presumably, by the end of their second encounter with Superman and Batman Null and Void have lost their Secret Identity Drawbacks.
As always, heights and weights are best guesses. I have chosen not to give Null either the Strange or Distinct Appearance Drawbacks as the normal humans that encounter him believe he is in a costume. As a result, and as far as the MEGS rules are concerned, he does not reap any benefit or suffer any hindrance because of his weird appearance.
Alter Ego: Solomon "Sol" (Last name unrevealed)
Dex: 02 Str: 02 Bod: 02
Int: 04 Wil: 03 Min: 02
Inf: 03 Aur: 02 Spi: 02
Init: 07 HP: 20
Age (Old), Secret Identity.
During their second encounter with the World's Finest team, Batman used his own body as a conduit for the transformation when Null and Swordfish could not quite reach each other. If any character attempts this conduit maneuver they are jolted by an immense release of power.
Treat this as a Bashing Combat Physical Attack with an AV / EV of 7 / 7 and an OV / RV of the conduit character's Bod / Bod. The Attack appears to be energy-based and it is up to the GM's discretion whether Energy Absorption might be used to avoid this damage.
By Vincent Paul Bartilucci.
Source of Character: World's Finest Comics # 293 and #304-307 published by DC Comics.
World's Finest Comics #304-307
(oh, and #293]
Colonel Liger Buff Bagwell


This represents the third time our journal, the "International Quarterly of Community Health Education" has run a special issue. This one, "Sexual Health Protection, Culture, and Community: Contributions of Anthropology to Community Health Education", represents perhaps the most comprehensive treatment of a subject in a single issue. It also is the longest (155 pp.) and has more articles (nine) than any one of our sixty-six issues to date!


text:
Eni announces new discovery in the central part of the North Sea
Vår Energi holds a 20% stake in the licence, while Aker BP ASA (which is the Operator) holds 60% and Lundin Norway AS 20%. The wells are located about 4 km northwest of the Bøyla Field and 225 km west of...
ExxonMobil to increase, accelerate Permian output to 1 million barrels per day by 2024
The size of the company's resource base in the Permian is approximately 10 billion oil-equivalent barrels and is likely to grow further as analysis and development activities continue."We'...
HyPR™ HoleSaver™ system activated twice in four weeks in the Middle East
Churchill's HyPR™ HoleSaver™, the world's first hydraulic pipe recovery system, was activated on a well offshore of the UAE on 16th March after the BHA became stuck at 9,070 feet due...
Siccar Point Energy spuds Blackrock Exploration Well
The campaign, using Diamond Offshore's Ocean GreatWhite semi-submersible rig, is expected to take around five months and also includes the Lyon exploration prospect North of Shetland.Located 140 km...
Sercel optimises Vibroseis productivity
Sercel is pleased to announce the launch of the world's first Vibrator Auto-Guidance solution, designed to increase vibroseis productivity by up to 10%.The solution can be fitted to all Sercel Nomad...
Jumbo wins offshore decommissioning project
The removal operation will take place in the offshore series of fields located in the P15 block 35km North West of Hoek van Holland, Dutch North Sea, at a water depth of 26-28 metres.Project DetailsThis...
Global tech start-ups land place on unique accelerator
Nearly 200 applications from over 35 countries were received this year, with strong representation from the UK, US and Canada, covering both oil and gas and cleantech solutions that will support the...
i-Tech 7 appoints new Asia Pacific director
Simon Hird has more than 40 years' experience in the subsea oil and gas industry and has worked for several major contractors in the construction and life of field sectors. He joins i-Tech 7 from UTEC...
Oceaneering secures integrity services contract extension from Equinor
The contract, which was originally awarded to Oceaneering's integrity business in 2005 and competitively tendered again in December 2013, is extended until December 2020. Under the agreement,...
Software specialist fueled for further growth
Fari Consulting, founded by engineer Martin Lawson three years ago, has grown rapidly since moving to Sunderland Software Centre in December 2018.The company works with some of the world's largest oil...