- Submit
-
Browse
- All Categories
- Metaphysics and Epistemology
- Value Theory
- Science, Logic, and Mathematics
- Science, Logic, and Mathematics
- Logic and Philosophy of Logic
- Philosophy of Biology
- Philosophy of Cognitive Science
- Philosophy of Computing and Information
- Philosophy of Mathematics
- Philosophy of Physical Science
- Philosophy of Social Science
- Philosophy of Probability
- General Philosophy of Science
- Philosophy of Science, Misc
- History of Western Philosophy
- Philosophical Traditions
- Philosophy, Misc
- Other Academic Areas
- More
Switch to: References
Citations of:
Truth and Other Enigmas
Revue Philosophique de la France Et de l'Etranger 170 (1):62-65 (1980)
Add citations
You must login to add citations.
|
|
|
The aim of this essay is to introduce philosophers of science to some recent philosophical discussions of the nature and origin of the direction of time. The essay is organized around books by Hans Reichenbach, Paul Horwich, and Huw Price. I outline their major arguments and treat certain critical points in detail. I speculate at the end about the ways in which the subject may continue to develop and in which it may connect with other areas of philosophy. |
|
|
|
|
|
We conceive of many general terms we use as having satisfaction conditions that are objective in that the thought that something meets them neither entails nor is entailed by the thought that we are currently in a position in which we are ready, or warranted, to apply those terms to it. How do we manage to use a given term in such a way that it is thereby endowed, and conceived to be endowed, with satisfaction conditions that are objective in (...) |
|
|
I have two main objectives. The first is to get a better understanding of what is at issue between friends and foes of higher-order quantification, and of what it would mean to extend a Boolos-style treatment of second-order quantification to third- and higherorder quantification. The second objective is to argue that in the presence of absolutely general quantification, proper semantic theorizing is essentially unstable: it is impossible to provide a suitably general semantics for a given language in a language of (...) |
|
|
Realists claim that, amongst the statements weunderstand, there are some which are true, yetwhose truth potentially transcends the limits ofwhat we can recognize. Dummett and othershave argued that this realist thesis is incompatiblewith an account of understanding in termsof recognitional capacities. But careful analysis revealsthat this contention is mistaken. Thealleged incompatibility presupposes the truth of ametaphysical principle which cannot bevindicated on the basis of an account of understanding.Realists have independent reason toreject this metaphysical principle, as it leads to a collapseof (...) |
|
|
In this paper I attempt to clarify a relatively little-studied aspect of Michael Dummett's argument for intuitionism: its use of the notion of ‘undecidable’ sentence. I give a new analysis of this concept in epistemic terms, with which I resolve some puzzles and questions about how it works in the anti-realist critique of classical logic. |
|
|
The subject of this paper is the philosophical problem of accounting for the relationship between mathematics and non-mathematical reality. The first section, devoted to the importance of the problem, suggests that many of the reasons for engaging in philosophy at all make an account of the relationship between mathematics and reality a priority, not only in philosophy of mathematics and philosophy of science, but also in general epistemology/metaphysics. This is followed by a (rather brief) survey of the major, traditional philosophies (...) |
|
|
Brandom's book Making It Explicit defends Davidson's claim that conceptual thought can arise only on the background of a practice of mutual interpretation, without endorsing the further view that one can be a thinker only if one has the concept of a concept. This involves giving an account of conceptual content in terms of what Brandom calls practical deontic attitudes. In this paper, I make a plea for the conclusion that these practical attitudes are best seen as intentional, but non-conceptually (...) |
|
|
How many correct logics are there? Monists endorse that there is one, pluralists argue for many, and nihilists claim that there are none. Reasoning about these views requires a logic. That is the meta-logic. It turns out that there are some meta-logical challenges specifically for the pluralists. I will argue that these depend on an implicitly assumed absoluteness of correct logic. Pluralists can solve the challenges by giving up on this absoluteness and instead adopt contextualism about correct logic. This contextualism (...) |
|
|
In this paper we address the question of how it can be possible for a non-expert to acquire justified true belief from expert testimony. We discuss reductionism and epistemic trust as theoretical approaches to answer this question and present a novel solution that avoids major problems of both theoretical options: Performative Expert Testimony. PET draws on a functional account of expertise insofar as it takes the expert’s visibility as a good informant capable to satisfy informational needs as equally important as (...) |
|
|
I reconstruct my own journey into the history of the human sciences, which I show to have been a process of discovering the metaphysical standing of the human. I begin with Alexandre Koyré’s encounter with Edmund Husserl in the 1930s, which I use to throw light on the legacy of Kant’s ‘anthropological’ understanding of the human, which dominated and limited 19th-century science. As I show, those who broke from Kant’s strictures and set the stage for the 20th-century revolutions in science (...) |
|
|
In this paper we address the question of how it can be possible for a non-expert to acquire justified true belief from expert testimony. We discuss reductionism and epistemic trust as theoretical approaches to answer this question and present a novel solution that avoids major problems of both theoretical options: Performative Expert Testimony (PET). PET draws on a functional account of expertise insofar as it takes the expert’s visibility as a good informant capable to satisfy informational needs as equally important (...) |
|
|
Berkeley’s ‘master argument’ for idealism has been the subject of extensive criticism. Two of his strongest critics, A.N. Prior and J.L. Mackie, argue that due to various logical confusions on the part of Berkeley, the master argument fails to establish his idealist conclusion. Prior argues that Berkeley’s argument ‘proves too little’ in its conclusion, while Mackie contends that Berkeley confuses two different kinds of self-refutation in his argument. This paper proposes a defence of the master argument based on intuitionistic argument. (...) |
|
|
The Generalized Integration Challenge is the task of providing, for a given domain of discourse, a simultaneously acceptable metaphysics, epistemology and metasemantics and showing them to be so. In this paper, we focus on a metaethical position for which seems particularly acute: the brand of normative realism which takes normative properties to be mind-independent and causally inert. The problem is that these metaphysical commitments seem to make normative knowledge impossible. We suggest that bringing metasemantics into play can help to resolve (...) |
|
|
What is it to know the meaning of a word? The traditional view is that it involves the possession of a concept that determines the extension of a word, with the concept corresponding to a single psychological state. Millikan criticizes this view, denying not only that concepts determine extensions but also that sharing a concept means sharing a psychological state. The purpose of this article is to defend a modified version of the traditional view. I argue that Millikan's claims do (...) |
|
|
This is a presentation of Gareth Evans' theory of the sense and reference of singular terms. |
|
|
This thesis offers a naturalist revision of Alain Badiou’s philosophy. This goal is pursued through an encounter of Badiou’s mathematical ontology and theory of truth with contemporary trends in philosophy of mathematics and philosophy of science. I take issue with Badiou’s inability to elucidate the link between the empirical and the ontological, and his residual reliance on a Heideggerian project of fundamental ontology, which undermines his own immanentist principles. I will argue for both a bottom-up naturalisation of Badiou’s philosophical approach (...) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Gottfried Gabriel is interviewed by Todor Polimenov about the relationship between analytic and continental philosophy. |
|
|
|
|
|
In a famous and controversial paper, B. H. Slater has argued against the possibility of paraconsistent logics. Our reply is centred on the distinction between two aspects of the meaning of a logical constant *c* in a given logic: its operational meaning, given by the operational rules for *c* in a cut-free sequent calculus for the logic at issue, and its global meaning, specified by the sequents containing *c* which can be proved in the same calculus. Subsequently, we use the (...) |
|
|
Simon Blackburn has shown that there is an analogy between the problem of moral motivation in ethics (how can moral reasons move us?) and the problem of what we might call the power of logical reasons (how can logical reasons move us, what is the force of the 'logical must?'). In this paper, I explore further the parallel between the internalism problem in ethics and the problem of the power of logical reasons, and defend a version of psychologism about reasons, (...) |
|
|
Em sua obra, Robert Brandom apresenta uma teoria expressivista da lógica. Segundo o autor, a lógica tem o papel expressivo de tornar explı́citas as relações inferenciais implı́citas em nossas práticas linguı́sticas. Estas relações inferenciais conferem conteúdo aos conceitos. Neste artigo, exploraremos a tese de que o expressivismo lógico de Brandom é uma teoria antirrealista acerca da lógica. Realistas lógicos costumam defender a existência independente de fatos lógicos em relação a nossas práticas cognitivas e linguı́sticas, de modo que a lógica, uma (...) |
|
|
Realism takes many forms. The aim of this paper is to show that the “Critique of pure Reason” is the founding document of realism and that to the present-day Kant’s discussion of realism has shaped the theoretical landscape of the debates over realism. Kant not only invents the now common philosophical term ‘realism’. He also lays out the theoretical topography of the forms of realism that still frames our understanding of philosophical questions concerning reality. The paper explores this by analysis (...) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I argue that there are two ways of construing Wittgenstein’s slogan that meaning is use. One accepts the view that the notion of meaning must be explained in terms of truth-theoretic notions and is committed to the epistemic conception of truth. The other keeps the notion of meaning and the truth-theoretic notions apart and is not committed to the epistemic conception of truth. I argue that Dummett endorses the first way of construing Wittgenstein’s slogan. I address the issue by discussing (...) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
ABSTRACT In ‘The philosophical basis of intuitionistic logic’, Michael Dummett discusses two routes towards accepting intuitionistic rather than classical logic in number theory, one meaning-theoretical and the other ontological. He concludes that the former route is open, but the latter is closed. I reconstruct Dummett's argument against the ontological route and argue that it fails. Call a procedure ‘investigative’ if that in virtue of which a true proposition stating its outcome is true exists prior to the execution of that procedure; (...) |
|
|
Does Wittgenstein have a method? There are two challenges to an affirmative answer. One is put forth by Schulte, who claims that Wittgenstein’s method is little more than a skill, and thus not a method in any ambitious sense of that word. Another is Conant’s view that the philosophy of the later Wittgenstein entertains not one method, but a variety of methods. I tackle these challenges by questioning what I take to be their presupposed conceptions of ‘method’ and conclude that (...) |
|
|
Some propositions add more information to bodies of propositions than do others. We start with intuitive considerations on qualitative comparisons of information added . Central to these are considerations bearing on conjunctions and on negations. We find that we can discern two distinct, incompatible, notions of information added. From the comparative notions we pass to quantitative measurement of information added. In this we borrow heavily from the literature on quantitative representations of qualitative, comparative conditional probability. We look at two ways (...) |
|
|
This paper deals with the possibility of faultless disagreement in law. It does this by looking to other spheres in which faultless disagreement appears to be possible, mainly in matters of taste and ethics. Three possible accounts are explored: the realist account, the relativist account, and the expressivist account. The paper tries to show that in the case of legal disagreements, there is a place for an approach that can take into account our intuitions in the sense that legal disagreements (...) |
|
|
Michael Dummett offered a semantic characterisation of a variety of realism-antirealism debates. This approach has fallen out of fashion. This has been to the detriment of metaphysics. This paper offers an accurate characterisation of Dummett’s view, often lacking in the literature, and then defends it against a range of attacks (from Devitt, Miller and Williamson). This understanding of realism debates is resilient, and if we take it seriously the philosophical terrain looks importantly different. In particular, the philosophy of language has (...) |
|
|
Michael Dummett has proposed an influential analysis of the meaning of ethnic and racial slurs based on inferential rules. Timothy Williamson, however, finds the analysis problematic. It does not seem to explain how slurs are actually used. Williamson’s challenge for the inferentialist account of slurs has not gone unnoticed. In this article, I first discuss the debate between the inferentialists and Williamson. I argue that the inferentialist responses concentrate on the wrong issue and the real issue in Williamson’s challenge is (...) |
|
|
A provocative view has it that word meanings are underdetermined and dynamic, frustrating traditional approaches to theorizing about meaning. Peter Ludlow’s Living Words provides some of the philosophical reasons and motivations for accepting one such view, develops some of its details, and explores some of its ramifications. We critically examine some of the arguments in Living Words, paying particular attention to some of Ludlow’s views about the meanings of predicates, preservation of bivalence and the T-schema, and methods of modulating meaning. |
|
|
Donald Davidson infamously claims that belief is in its nature veridical, and that skepticism is for this reason fundamentally incoherent. To those who take the issue of external world skepticism seriously, Davidson's arguments may seem to involve a conjuring trick. In particular, his invocation of an ‘omniscient interpreter’, whose intelligibility supposedly ensures that our beliefs must be largely true, has the air of incense and lantern-rubbing about it. Davidson's claim has received considerable critical response in the literature, almost all of (...) |
|
|
It is difficult to imagine that a Royal Institute of Physics would organize an annual lecture series on the theme ‘conceptions of physics’. Similarly, it is quite improbable that a Royal Institute of Astronomy would even contemplate inviting speakers for a lecture series called ‘conceptions of astronomy’. What, then, is so special about philosophy that the theme of this lecture series does not appear to be altogether outlandish? Is it, perhaps, that philosophy is the reflective discipline par excellence, so that (...) |
|
|
The macaque washes a potato in a stream. It does this because it has seen the dirt come off as another macaque washed its potato, and it knows that clean potato. |
|
|
Doing Worlds with Words throws light on the problem of meaning as the meeting point of linguistics, logic and philosophy, and critically assesses the possibilities and limitations of elucidating the nature of meaning by means of formal logic, model theory and model-theoretical semantics. The main thrust of the book is to show that it is misguided to understand model theory metaphysically and so to try to base formal semantics on something like formal metaphysics; rather, the book states that model theory (...) |
|
|
In accord with the theme of the present volume on , it is not so much the aim of this essay to provide a detailed account of particular lines of argument, as it is to suggest something of the manner in which so-called 'Buddhist idealism' unfolded as a tradition not just for Buddhists, but within Indian philosophy more generally. Seen from this perspective, Buddhist idealism remained a current within Indian philosophy long after the demise of Buddhism in India, in about (...) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
For twenty years, D. H. Mellor has promoted an influential defence of a view of time he first called the ‘tenseless’ view, but now associates with what he calls the ‘B-theory.’ It is his defence of this view, not the view itself, which is generally taken to be novel. It is organized around a forcefully presented attack on rival views which he claims to be a development of McTaggart's celebrated argument that the ‘A-series’ is contradictory. I will call this attack (...) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Cora Diamond has recently criticised as mere legend the interpretation of a quip of Ramsey's, contained in the epigraph below, which takes him to be objecting to or rejecting Wittgenstein's Tractarian distinction between saying and showing. Whilst I agree with Diamond's discussion of the legend, I argue that her interpretation of the quip has little evidential support, and runs foul of a criticism sometimes made against intuitionism. Rather than seeing Ramsey as making a claim about the nature of propositions, as (...) |
PhilPapers logo by Andrea Andrews and Meghan Driscoll.
This site uses cookies and Google Analytics (see our terms & conditions for details regarding the privacy implications). Use of this site is subject to terms & conditions.
All rights reserved by The PhilPapers Foundation
Server: philpapers-web-7674574dd6-jhp86 uwo