102nd Session of the Philosophical Foundations of Law and Finance

Title: The Eternal Spring 

For the 102nd session of the Philosophical Foundations of Law and Finance, to be held from 6 to 8pm tonight, Friday March 30th 2012, in room 501, University of Westminster campus, we will: (1) collect the LLM dissertation titles from students and (2) examine the causes of the perrenial Great War (making peace between our genetics and our genuine spiritual being) and the ongoing Great Depression (making war between superficial consumerism and our lives). 

As a philosophy student studying Plato and Aristotle in Princeton during the Vietnam War, it became obvious to me that a lot of my very brilliant colleagues who'd received princely educations believing that they would become very rich (millionaire-billionaires adjusting for inflation), movie stars, rock stars and presidents, would become relatively average and sedate, if not sedated, and those who did not fall under medication, would become very pissed off, having squandered their God-given talents chasing the meaninglessness of empty suits.

Today, the Arab spring is just one of the global blooms of corrupt political-economic systems where holier than thou public servants have hundreds of billions of dollars of personal wealth while their poor citizen have not even one ounce of zakat, and as the political elite have continuously "bailed out" the bankers in the US and Europe, we have immense bubbles that can be resolved only in terms of debt forgiveness (where bankers take the hit) or more fascistic totalitarianism (where the good taxpaying citizens are debt enslaved). To clarify these choices, we have some beautifully illustrated lectures by David McWilliams of Punk Economics via Zerohedge:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/how-europe-has-evolved-democracy-bankocracy-and-why-austerity-will-lead-chaos

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/europes-cash-trash-ltro-scam-and-indentured-servitude-citizenry

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/liquidity-and-false-recovery

Enjoy your spring wherever you are and be prepared for another kind of spring coming soon to your door.

Ciao
Joe

102nd Session of the Philosophical Foundations of Law and Finance

94th Session of the Philosophical Foundations of Law and Finance

Dear All

In the 94th Session of the Philosophical Foundations of Law and Finance (Friday, Dec 2, 2011, 18:00 - 20:00, room 516, University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street, London), we will explore the concept of the "Invariance of Default." We shall examine the concept of "Invariance of default" using first Aristotle's theory of knowledge, i.e. predication as universals and universals as models of general precise reasoning. Then, we shall explore the concept of Invariance of Default in terms of a slightly modified Cheng-Lauda (2004) heuristic strategy of (1) Ideal, (2) Ideological Interpretations of the Ideal and (3) Technical Realisations of the Ideal. To this heuristic, we add the Nullity as a necessary element that allows the theory of the Invariance of Default to be transformed into a monoid, and as a monoid become a model for an Algebra of Law and Finance. I know this all sounds like abstract nonsense. It's at this point where we start making bets...afterwards for a drink and TEXMEX at Texas Embassy across the street from No 1 Pall Mall, near the Sainsbury wing of the National Museum...from say 8:30pm. BTW TEXMEX if done properly is BETTER THAN ITALIAN! Ha ha!

Joe

94th Session of the Philosophical Foundations of Law and Finance

92d Session of the Philosophical Foundations of Law and Finance

Dear all,

For the 92nd Session of the Philosophical Foundations of Law and Finance (Friday, Nov 18, 2011, 18:00 - 20:00, room 516, University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street, London) , we shall try to resurrect God. There is a lot of ungodly stuff written about the death of god (Nietzchean pysch-pop syphilitic anti-moralising cookbook style to the super-ego-erotic Lacanian matheo-consciousness), but I prefer the grand line of attack from Aristotle's pith-plint Metaphysics book XII through St Augustine, St Thomas, Cantor, Reimann, Weyl, Wigner--in other words, from the simple dimensionality of Euclid to the utterly compressed fractal (non-conformal) dimensionality of Poincare and Mandelbrot. God appears everywhere -- just look at Duns Scotus Eriguena and his fourfold argument of God and nature for formal proof. Kierkegaarde continuously tried to resurrect the Aristotelian god. But today with everyone hooked in instantaneous chatter, God is the subdermal stillness-in-the-absence. Today, we have God despite any text and God not for believers but for those who are incapable of believing. 

See Alfred North Whitehead: 

http://www.forizslaszlo.com/filozofia/folyamat_es_valosag/Whitehead_PR_Part5_Final_Interpratation.pdf.

Joe

92d Session of the Philosophical Foundations of Law and Finance

91st Session of the Philosophical Foundations of Law and Finance

Dear all,

Tonight, Friday November 11, 2011, for the 91st Session of the Philosophical Foundations of Law and Finance, we will remind ourselves of Aristotle's concept of objective knowledge categories and objects across the theoretical, productive and practical sciences, clarify some mistakes made by Heidegger and Wittgenstein re "Categories," and push on with my theory on "the Invariance of Default" and "the Great Cycles of Default" as applied to the Euro crisis.

So far our predictions from theory to markets and politics have been spookily accurate from about late 2007. For those following my blog, the next phase encoded into subliminal social actions is [B][B]->[B][I]. 6 - 8pm, room 516, 309 Regent St, London.

Drinks and dinner nearby (maybe Japanese, Persian or Thai) après lecture.

Joe

91st Session of the Philosophical Foundations of Law and Finance

88th Session of the Philosophical Foundations of Law and Finance

Dear all,

for the 88th Session of the Philosophical Foundations of Law and Finance, I will give a brief talk on "Post-Modern Finance and Other Revolutionary Etudes." Last time, we had a strong group of poets, lawyers and investment bankers. The best part of the evening is sharing gossip. You can learn so much from indiscretion. It's a great luxury to go slow. Our pace is about one paragraph of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics per hour. Comments are unconstrained by any -ism. The sessions remind me of watching the English weather...very changeable from "hungry clouds" swaging on the deep to instantaneous transformations of exaggerated and piercing sunlight. 

Room 516, 309 Regent Street, London, from 6 to 8 pm, Friday, Oct 21, 2011.

Joe

88th Session of the Philosophical Foundations of Law and Finance

87th Session of the Philosophical Foundations of Law and Finance

1. For the 87th Session of the Philosophical Foundations of Law and Finance, we will continue reading Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics and discuss the question:

2. Is the US Fed constitutional? 

3. See John P. Hussman's brilliant little law and finance analysis at:http://www.hussmanfunds.com/wmc/wmc101122.htm. Quoting from the article, he states:

"Ever since the Bear Stearns bailout, I've been insistent that the Federal Reserve is increasingly operating outside of its statutory boundaries. As I noted in the March 31, 2008 weekly comment (What Congress and Investors Should Understand about the Bear Stearns Deal):

"The clear historical role of the Federal Reserve has been to manage the composition of Federal liabilities (by varying the mix of Treasury securities and monetary base - currency and bank reserves - held by the public). The recent transaction is a dangerous break from that role, in which unelected bureaucrats are committing public funds to facilitate private business transactions and selectively defend the holders of corporate securities. Only Congress has the Constitutional right, by the representative will of the people, to commit public funds. The Bear Stearns deal is a dangerous precedent and a dilution of Congressional prerogative.""

4. Venue: room 516, University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street, London.

5. Date and time: Friday, Oct 14th 2011, 18:00 - 20:00

6. Dinner at The Galleria from 20:30 at 17 New Cavendish St. 

7. RSVP jnjtanega@gmail.com or text 07748186880.

Joe

87th Session of the Philosophical Foundations of Law and Finance

70th Session of Philosophical Foundations of Law and Finance

Dear all,

have you ever wondered about self-defense in the most general of ways?  Or how to, at least, neutralize sophistic opinions?

To celebrate the 70^th session of the Philosophical Foundations of Law and Finance (Room 5.16, 309 Regent Street, University of Westminster, from 6-8pm), we will look at septuagenarian wisdom of argumentation.

Specifically, we will read and comment on a little article found by Rezi entitled, “Beyond the Basics: Seventy-Five Defenses Securities Litigators Need to Know,” by Jonathan Eisenberg, 62 Bus Law 1281 (2007), available at:  https://www.copyright.com/ccc/basicSearch.do?&operation=go&searchType=0&lastSearch=simple&all=on&titleOrStdNo=0007-6899.

As the basis for our analysis we will refer to Aristotle’s material fallacies found in his De Sophisticis Elenchis available at http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/sophist_refut.html, comprising accident, affirming the consequent, converse accident, irrelevant conclusion, begging the question, false cause and fallacy of many questions.

Post facto, we will wander over to a new Lebanese restaurant to be announced in class.

Regards,

Joe and Rezi

70th Session of Philosophical Foundations of Law and Finance

61st Session of Philosophical Foundations of Law and Finance

Dear All,

The 61st Session of Philosophical Foundations of Law and Finance (Friday, 5 Nov, 6-8pm, room 5.17, 309 Regent Street) will be devoted to:

Overcoming Information Asymmetry in Law and Finance

with simple illustrations from entrepreneurial business plans to more complex examples from securities prospectuses.  

A very sophisticated use of information asymmetry theory can be found in http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/ifdp/2010/1010/ifdp1010.pdf (Nov. 2010) where Beltram & Thomas argue that information asymmetry alone is sufficient to explain the credit crisis and to provide a criterion for judging the potential success or failure of proposed regulatory solutions to the credit crisis. Joe recommends all Corporate Finance Law and International Banking Law students read the article since it provides a particularly good review of the recent scholarly literature and shows how information asymmetry may be used in arguendo to reach surprisingly general results.  The article was spotted by Edmond Curtin. Many thanks, Edmond.

As part of our philosophical investigation we shall ask, "What are the assumptions underlying information asymmetry?"  One possible answer comes from the concept of "mutuality of information" based on the symmetric correlation of probabilities between information-communication systems. [See, Seth Lloyd (1996) “Causal Asymmetry from Statistics” in Physical Origins of Time Asymmetry edited by J.J. Halliwell, J. Perez-Mercader, and W.H. Zurek, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.] We will try to elucidate mutuality of information in relation to social phenomena and legal systems.  For example, the goal of Plato’s Laws was to attain “social amity" which could not be had unless there was a mutuality of information at every level of society.  [See, Plato's Laws, Book I.]

In class readings of Aristotle's Art of Rhetoric will continue on the forensic, epidetic and deliberate forms of enthymemes (available a http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/rhetoric.html).

Afterwards if we feel for pan-Asian food and good company please join us for a nice dinner at Wagamama at 101a Wigmore Street.  Please RSPV so that we can arrange for reservations.

Regards,

Rezi & Joe

61st Session of Philosophical Foundations of Law and Finance

59th session of the Philosophical Foundations of Law and Finance

Dear All,

 

You are welcomed to join us for the 59^th session of the Philosophical Foundations of Law and Finance, this Friday, 22 October 2010, from 6.00 to 8.00pm, in room 5.16, 309 Regent Street (University of Westminster).

 

We will continue with a close reading of Aristotle's Art of Rhetoric (available at http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/rhetoric.html). Last week, we asked how could Aristotle believe that forensic arguments are such that the "true and approximately true are apprehended by the same faculty"? Here we will link our investigation to the indeterminability of the law (Dr. Laura Niada's favourite transform) which in turn shall be aligned to Knopf's convergent, definitely divergent and indefinitely divergent infinities.  Our goal is to understand the use of the potential infinitudes (the truth) behind Aristotle's Art of Rhetoric.  More shall be said about Aristotle's long lost invention, the "enthymeme" and the schema of unconsciously powerful arguments.

These types of rhetoric arguments find their way in the current discourse, (e.g. yesterday’s New York Times opinion by Judith Lichtenberg “Is Pure Altruism Possible?” accessible at http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/19/is-pure-altruism-possible/?ref=opinion).

At about 8 o’clock, depending on whether we feel for local, mediterranean, oriental or other exotic food we will explore the area for a nice place to enjoy each other’s company.

 

Regards,

Rezi and Joe

59th session of the Philosophical Foundations of Law and Finance

58th Session of the Philosophical Foundations of Law and Finance

Dear All,

We would like to invite you for another engaging session of the Philosophical Foundations of Law and Finance, this Friday, 15 October 2010, from 6.00 to 8.00pm, in room 5.16, 309 Regent Street (University of Westminster).

 

We will read Aristotle's Art of Rhetoric (available at http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/rhetoric.html) and consider the art of persuasion from a hypno-unconscious communication system perspective. Consider why is it that certain individuals are able to control situations with their voice, their posture and gestures.  Aristotle's genius was to establish whole fields of knowledge.  Rhetoric is a technical art, skill, useful and dangerous in the wrong hands.  In this work, Aristotle publishes a scientific account of rhetoric with little warning of its potential for abuse.

 The Art of Rhetoric was a required element in the classical tradition for over 2,300 years. It fell out of the compulsory curriculum in England in the early 20th century.  That was a mistake.  If you read Aristotle, you will get smarter and maybe even wiser.

Thereafter, at 8 o’clock we will head towards Vapiano (19-21 Great Portland Street, W1W 8QB) where we can test our skills of rhetoric into finding a good table and have a nice Friday evening.

Regards,

Rezi and Joe 

58th Session of the Philosophical Foundations of Law and Finance

Philosophical Foundations of Law and Finance - 56th Weekly Meeting

Dear all

We are keen and delighted to announce that the 56th session of the Philosophical Foundations of Law and Finance will take place on Friday 1 October 2010, from 6.00 to 8.00pm, in room 5.16, 309 Regent Street (University of Westminster).

To get us back in the mood of philosophizing about the nature of laws we will read something classical (Plato's Laws or Aristotle's Rhetoric) and develop quite independently what might be called "A Hierarchy of Algebras for Legal Analysis". Joe will set out how Hohfeld's schema of legal relations, i.e., jural opposites and jural correlatives of rights, privileges, power and immunity, can be more simply understood in terms of Category Theory.

Category Theory, born about 60 years ago is now firmly embedded in the way we think about modern algebras – it is an extremely superficial theory that can be applied to practically anything –computing networks, quarks, boxing, dish stacking menus, flights of birds, and now, hopefully, legal theory and applications.

Hohfeld in the early part of the 20th century purported to have established an "analytical jurisprudence" that could be used to unravel the mysteries of any legal problem by showing how genuinely complex any legal relation is in terms of jural opposites and correlatives. This schema has always been quite difficult to apply, but with a bit of practice, can be used to resolve many so-called problems in the interpretation of laws – or, in the so-called "practice of law".

Joe will propose to simplify Hohfeld's "field equations" into a much more compact framework, making use of monoids and the articles of faith of Category Theory. The hypothesis is that if we can show how Hohfeld's legal relations are a category, then wherever Hohfeld's analysis applies, we also have a category. Thus, this sort of legal analysis would get everything else that Category Theory has to offer for free! Further, we would have a precise way of speaking about the structure of laws as fundamental conceptions of mathematics. This sounds like a conceptual breakthrough... At this level of abstraction, fundamental conceptions of law (which is the very title and aim of Hohfeld's work) are equivalent to fundamental conceptions of mathematics – which is the title to high school level text on Category Theory. How weird and wonderful if the implied isomorphism is actually the case!

We shall consequently test the application of Category Theory to our traditional banqueting session at Vapiano (19-21 Great Portland Street, W1W 8QB), from 8pm onwards.

See you on Friday!
Joe, Rezarte and Laura

Philosophical Foundations of Law and Finance - 56th Weekly Meeting

Philosophical Foundations of Law and Finance - 32nd Weekly Meeting

Dear all

The 32nd research seminar on the Philosophical Foundations of Law & Finance warmly welcomes you this Friday, 9 October, at 6:00-8:00pm, in room 516, 309 Regent Street (University of Westminster).

Joe is particularly inspired about the agenda:

We shall review the basics of Aristotelian categoric logic -- potentiality and actuality, and the four causes--and then go directly to the apex of Aristotelian philosophy which is Book 12, part 9 of the Metaphysics (http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/metaphysics.12.xii.html ). We will do a close reading of "being" as the "unmoved mover". From this peak, much of the rest of philosophy is a slide downwards. So if you want to see what the greatest philosopher after Plato thought about the highest peak of consciousness and God, then this is the session to come to.

I take the occasion to advertise a forthcoming special event: the “Philosophic Foundations of Law and Finance Weekend Re-Treat.” The re-treat will take place in St Mawes, Cornwall, during the 13-15 November weekend. The programme includes walks (hikes or beach strolls), exquisite food, philosophy. Nice and interesting people sharing time together.

Transport costs by train are about £60 but it may be possible to get a group discount. With regard to the accommodation, Omar is arranging to rent a cottage from his boss: http://www.portscathoholidays.co.uk/stmawes/cottages/chupra#

The cottage has three bedrooms which sleep 7 people. However, we can arrange for extra beds. The cost for the cottage is contained. If more people want to join than the places available, other accommodation will be arranged. We apply a first come first served policy, so please email Omar for booking a place and for any further information (omar.a.khan@uk.bnpparibas.com). Please decide by this Friday, 9 October.

I look forward to seeing you all at the seminar!

Best wishes

Laura

Philosophical Foundations of Law and Finance - 32nd Weekly Meeting