It’s been a long productive ride, but it’s time to get off the bandwagon and recognize that the Cartesian tradition, in analytic philosophy of language and mind and linguistics, has played itself o...

The unification argument, usually regarded as the main argument for predicativism about proper names, has recently been attacked by Robin Jeshion. According to Jeshion, the unification argument is based on the assumption of the literality of predicative uses of proper names in statements such as “There is one Alfred in Princeton.” In such a use, a proper name ‘N’ is used predicatively to denote those, and only those, objects called N. As Jeshion argues, however, there are many other examples in (...) which a proper name ‘N’ is used predicatively to denote objects which are not called N. Based on such cases, Jeshion challenges the predicativist to provide a justification for assuming that the original predicative use of proper names, to which the predicativist appeals in the unification argument, is literal. My aim in this paper is to defend predicativism by arguing that the predicativist’s assumption is well motivated. To this end, I first present the unification argument for predicativism and Jeshion’s challenge to it. Then, I argue that the answer provided by Delia Graff Fara to Jeshion’s challenge is unsatisfactory. Finally, I meet Jeshion’s challenge by extending the phenomena highlighted in Jeshion’s examples to the referential uses of proper names. (shrink)

Die Arbeit betrachtet die verschiedenen Ansichten, die über wissenschaftliche Objektivität bestehen: Etwa als Charakteristik einer gesamtwissenschaftlichen Praxis, als Gesamtfortschritt, der durch die Struktur der Institution bestimmt ist, oder als etwas, was auf subjektivem Glauben, subjektivem Verfahren und kollektiven Meinungen begründet ist. Sie betrachtet die Objektivität der Wissenschaft auch in bezug auf den Sinn wissenschaftlicher Behauptungen und bezüglich des allgemeinen erkenntnistheoretischen Hintergrundes. Mit Blick auf einige neuere Thesen innerhalb der Quantenphysik und in der Sprache der Quantenphysik versucht die Arbeit herauszustellen, daß (...) die Praxis der tatsächlichen Wissenschaft über historische und logisch-methodologische Rechenschaftsablegung hinausgeht, um ihre Glaubwürdigkeit in einer kontinuierlich sich erweiternden Erfahrung unter Beweis zu stellen. Wissenschaft als ein systematisches öffentliches Unternehmen, dessen Zweck es ist, Behauptungen über die Natur zu formulieren, erreicht dies durch einen Bedeutungswandel von Objektivität und indem sie neue "Sprachen" übernimmt, die durch solchen Wandel erfordert werden. (shrink)

Recurrent excitation is experimentally well documented in cortical populations. It provides for intracortical excitatory biases that linearize negative feedback interactions and induce macroscopic state transitions during perception. The concept of the local neighborhood should be expanded to spatial patterns as the basis for perception, in which large areas of cortex are bound into cooperative behavior with near-silent columns as important as active columns revealed by unit recording.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Ambiguities of Mild Cognitive ImpairmentTim Thornton (bio)Keywordsclassification, disease, mild cognitive impairment, normative, valuesCorner and Bond's paper (2006) raises some key ethical questions about the classification and diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment (MCI). In this commentary, I wish to revise some of the general issues about the classification of mental disorder raised by this particular classificatory concept. The central issue raised is the connection between the pathologic status of (...) a condition and what I term the plain facts about the frequency and nature of its symptoms.There are a number of ethical questions raised by applying the label of MCI. Centrally, perhaps, is the concern, illustrated by the case vignettes, that a diagnosis carries negative repercussions that might outweigh the more narrowly medical advantages of an early diagnosis. But although that concern may be appropriate, such ethical complications are a danger of any psychiatric classification or diagnosis, even the most well grounded. Any psychiatric diagnosis can carry a danger of stigma, for example.What seems to make such ethical concerns more serious in this case—at least to a philosopher outsider—is the implicit further concern that MCI is not a real, objective, or, to use a more medical term, valid category or classification. If it is not valid, then any negative connotations of the diagnosis will not be outweighed by medical technological achievements. In other words, the further ethical issues are given much greater weight if the question of validity is not satisfactorily resolved.The question of the reality, objectivity, or validity of MCI can be divided into two issues:1. Is MCI a real, objective, or valid feature of psychological phenomenology?2. Is MCI a real, objective, or valid psychological illness, disease, or pathology?A condition might be a real, objective, or valid feature of psychological phenomenology without being a real illness. It might be some other aspect of human living. Szasz (1960) suggests that this is the case with mental illness (he might more properly say "so-called mental illness") as a whole. But, less controversially, the unusual ability to calculate, mentally and in a flash, the date of future Easter Sundays is a genuine feature of human living—some people possess the ability even if most do not—without either it, or its lack, being an illness. Being real as an illness is a very specific kind of being. It is this, I suggest, that raises difficulties in the case of MCI by contrast with the easier question of whether something is a genuine feature of human living in some other way. [End Page 21]From "normal" and "normative" to "correct" and "incorrect"Corner and Bond (2006) usefully suggest that the question of whether MCI is real is made more difficult by an ambiguity in the sense of the word normal. They suggest that although "physiologic and cognitive decline is assumed to be a normal experience" this still leaves "boundary problems" about "distinguishing normal aging from disease" (Corner and Bond 2006, 3–4). Thus, if the symptoms of MCI are continuous with the ordinary phenomena of physiologic and cognitive decline, then they might also be merely normal. But this does not settle the status of MCI because normal can mean either "normative, that is, usual; or it can mean nonpathologic" (Corner and Bond 2006, 4).On the assumption that MCI is at least continuous with phenomena that are normal, then its symptoms might be normal in the sense of usual but nevertheless pathologic: an inevitable illness. Or they might be usual and nonpathologic, that is, merely a feature of aging that, although regrettable, lacks the connotations of illness (e.g., the appropriateness, if not the possibility, of treatment). (In principle on the assumption in play—that the symptoms of MCI are normal—they might be unusual but nonpathologic akin, for example, to an improved ability to solve crosswords with age that might affect a small lucky proportion of the population. Perhaps such a crossword puzzler might be reassured by their doctor: "Well that is very unusual but there is no need to worry: it is not a symptom of any illness. You are perfectly normal.")Thus the question "Is MCI normal... (shrink)

First-order formalisations are often preferred to propositional ones because they are thought to underwrite the validity of more arguments. We compare and contrast the ability of some well-known logics—these two in particular—to formally capture valid and invalid arguments. We show that there is a precise and important sense in which first-order logic does not improve on propositional logic in this respect. We also prove some generalisations and related results of philosophical interest. The rest of the article investigates the results’ philosophical (...) significance. A first moral is that the correct way to state the oft-cited superiority of first-order logic vis-`a-vis propositional logic is more nuanced than often thought. The second moral concerns semantic theory; the third logic’s use as a tool for discovery. A fourth and final moral is that second-order logic’s transcendence of first-order logic is greater than first-order logic’s transcendence of propositional logic. (shrink)

This article was originally published in the Encyclopedia of Language & Linguistics, Second Edition, published by Elsevier, and the attached copy is provided by Elsevier for the author's benefit and for the benefit of the author's institution, for noncommercial research and educational use including without limitation use in instruction at your institution, sending it to specific colleagues who you know, and providing a copy to your institution’s administrator.

Jean Nicod (1893–1924) is a French philosopher and logician who worked with Russell during the First World War. His PhD, with a preface from Russell, was published under the titleLa géométrie dans le monde sensiblein 1924, the year of his untimely death. The book did not have the impact he deserved. In this paper, I discuss the methodological aspect of Nicod’s approach. My aim is twofold. I would first like to show that Nicod’s definition of various notions of equivalence between (...) theories anticipates, in many respects, the (syntactic and semantic) model-theoretic notion of interpretation of a theory into another. I would secondly like to present the philosophical agenda that led Nicod to elaborate his logical framework: the defense of rationalism against Bergson’s attacks. (shrink)

By way of their genre, inaugural lectures are condensed and rather broad since they are addressed to a mixed audience. The following theses develop and defend my thoughts on the ‘justified religiou...

This paper construes various positions in the philosophy of science and the philosophy of law as responses to the problem of underdetermination in science and in law. We begin by drawing a close analogy between the successive approaches to this problem in the two fields. In particular, we stress the analogy between conventionalism as a philosophy of science and legal realism as a philosophy of law, and between Putnam's and Dworkin's critiques of these positions. We then challenge the Putnam-Dworkin strategy, (...) arguing that their attempts to combat underdetermination are unsuccessful. We are thus led to scepticism regarding the outlook underlying the celebrated maxim, “ruled by law, not by men”. (shrink)

Advocates of the strong programme in the sociology of knowledge contend that its four defining tenets entail the elimination and replacement tout court of epistemology by strong sociology of knowledge. I advance a naturalistic conception of both substantive and meta-level epistemological inquiry which fully complies with these four tenets and thereby shows that the strong programme neither entails nor even augurs the demise of epistemology.

I present and defend a reliabilist explanation of a priori knowledge which fulfils seven plausibility requirements.

The perceptual logic of j hintikka and r thomason is imbedded in a more general framework of quantification over individual-concepts. two intensional predicates for physical individuation and perceptual individuation are required in place of thomason's two variable-sorts. objectual perception of x by s is then definable as "for some y there is a perceptually individuated object z, in fact identical with x, such that s perceives that y is z.".

In this special issue, we put together papers that explore the theme “objectivity, space, and mind” from various angles. In the introduction we minimally discuss what are involved in this theme.

Summary Ordinary language philosophers frequently draw on the fact that an appropriately selected sentential combination of the form p but not q can, or cannot, be uttered without absurdity; however, they do so without sufficient reflection on the methodology of such combination tests, which results in considerable shortcomings even in practical application. To improve things, I shall discuss two criteria for distinguishing ‘pragmatic’ from ‘non-pragmatic’ implications and for separating the latter into ‘linguistic’ (‘semantic’ and ‘syntactical’) and ‘non-linguistic’ ones (2–3); consider (...) the bearing of the principle of ‘sense-constancy‘ on the applicability of combination tests (4); and call attention to the important, though merely heuristic, function of investigating pragmatic, as opposed to semantic, implications (5.1–5.2). Finally, I shall hint at a striking analogy between the linguistic (yet non-empirical) method of combination tests, the phenomenological method of ‘fictional variation’, and the empirical method of ‘conjectures and refutations’ (5.3). (shrink)

In his recent paper, Winch attacks a group of theories he calls cognitivism. These theories agree in holding that ‘the ability to think, both consciously and subconsciously, amounts to an ability to internally manipulate symbolic representations of that which we think about.The relevance of this attack to education is that ‘Cognitivism’ supplies plausible‐looking reasons for thinking that learning can take place without instruction, practice, memorisation or training and its prestige as a theory of learning devalues those activities within education.Its rejection (...) should therefore lead us to re‐examine our need for explicit teacher‐oriented pedagogies’.Cognitivism has led to an emphasis on autonomous learning and a consequent devaluing of the role of overt teaching, ‘the active transmission of knowledge and technique by an authoritative figure’. (shrink)

Different notions of analysis have been both theorized and put to use in early analytic philosophy. Two of them stand out: connective analysis and analysis as paraphrase. The latter played a central role in the development of analytic philosophy from Frege to Quine and beyond. With the advent of formal semantics of natural language in the 1970s, paraphrase came to be characterizable as translation into a formal “target language”. While I claim that the method cannot achieve its original philosophical aims, (...) I insist that, in spite of them, it is far from being a theoretically empty operation and that it lives on in some contemporary philosophical enterprises. (shrink)

Across a series of four experiments with 3- to 4-year-olds we demonstrate how cognitive mechanisms supporting noun learning extend to the mapping of actions to objects. In Experiment 1 the demonstration of a novel action led children to select a novel, rather than a familiar object. In Experiment 2 children exhibited long-term retention of novel action-object mappings and extended these actions to other category members. In Experiment 3 we showed that children formed an accurate sensorimotor record of the novel action. (...) In Experiment 4 we demonstrate limits on the types of actions mapped to novel objects. Overall these data suggest that certain aspects of noun mapping share common processing with action mapping and support a domain-general account of word learning. (shrink)

In celebrating Arthur Prior we celebrate what he gave to the world. Much of this is measured by what others have made of his ideas after his death. The focus of this paper is a little different. It looks at what Prior himself thought he was accomplishing. In particular it considers Prior’s attitude to the semantic metatheory of the logics that he was interested in. The paper sets out some characteristics of the metalogical study of intensional languages in terms of (...) an indexical theory of truth conditions stated in the language of set theory. In examining Prior’s work using these characteristics, it emerges that Prior had serious reservations about this way of studying modal and tense logics. (shrink)

C'est avec la grammaire générative que la discussion sur les rapports entre l'analyse linguistique et le rationalisme est devenue particulièrement abondante, en même temps qu'elle devenait une affaire idéologique concernant un large public. En présentant sa Cartesian Linguistics comme un chapitre dans l'histoire du rationalisme, Chomsky a prétendu avec éclat que: il y aurait une tradition rationaliste ayant des idées précises sur le langage, liée aux thèses cartésiennes et à la grammaire générale de Port-Royal; la grammaire générative reprendrait cette tradition (...) et lui apporterait une confirmation définitive. De manière générale, la validité historique des thèses de Chomsky a été contestée avec succès par les historiens: qu'il s'agisse de l'idée d'une linguistique cartésienne, de la prédominance du rationalisme aux dix-septième et dix-huitième siècles, de l'identité de démarche entre Port-Royal et la grammaire générative, voire même de la définition du rationalisme classique. (shrink)