O presente manual tem como intenção constituir um guia para uma disciplina introdutória de filosofia da linguagem. Foi elaborado a partir da leccionação da disciplina de Filosofia da Linguagem I na Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto desde 2001. A disciplina de Filosofia da Linguagem I ocupa um semestre lectivo e proporciona aos estudantes o primeiro contacto sistemático com a área da filosofia da linguagem. Pretende-se que este manual ofereça aos estudantes os instrumentos necessários não apenas para acompanhar uma (...) iniciação ao campo da filosofia da linguagem mas também para o estudo e a investigação autónomos posteriores. Para isso é percorrido um trajecto que conduz das intuições pré-teóricas acerca de linguagem, de que todos dispomos, até um conhecimento disciplinar específico, histórico e temático, da filosofia da linguagem. Em termos práticos, são considerados como precedentes da disciplina de Filosofia da Linguagem I – mesmo se, pelo existem actualmente precedências em sentido estrito – as disciplinas de Lógica I e II e de Filosofia do Conhecimento I e II. Os programas dessas disciplinas nos últimos anos estiveram presentes por trás da elaboração do manual. (shrink)

Under the title of ‘the axiom of existence’, hereafter, John R. Searle has reduced to compact dictum a view to which many philosophers subscribe: ‘Whatever is referred to must exist’. In this paper I shall offer two major arguments against adopting, at least on certain assumptions. There have been a number of defenses of, among them those arguing that it is fundamental to any systematic philosophy of language or logic. With the exception of discussing some of Searle's remarks in part (...) Ill of this paper I shall not comment on any of these defenses. (shrink)

Frege held that the result of applying a predicate to names lacks reference if any of the names lack reference. We defend the principle against a number of plausible objections. We put forth an account of consequence for a first-order language with identity in which the principle holds.

The article concerns the treatment of the so-called denoting phrases, of the forms ?every A?, ?any A?, ?an A? and ?some A?, in Russell's Principles of Mathematics. An initially attractive interpretation of what Russell's theory was has been proposed by P.T. Geach, in his Reference and Generality (1962). A different interpretation has been proposed by P. Dau (Notre Dame Journal, 1986). The article argues that neither of these is correct, because both credit Russell with a more thought-out theory than he (...) actually had. The conclusion is mainly negative: at this date Russell has no coherent theory of these phrases. An appendix notes that his understanding of the quantifiers in predicate logic is also, at this date, not entirely secure. (shrink)

Along with offering an historically-oriented interpretive reconstruction of the syntax of PM ( rst ed.), I argue for a certain understanding of its use of propositional function abstracts formed by placing a circum ex on a variable. I argue that this notation is used in PM only when de nitions are stated schematically in the metalanguage, and in argument-position when higher-type variables are involved. My aim throughout is to explain how the usage of function abstracts as “terms” (loosely speaking) is (...) not inconsistent with a philosophy of types that does not think of propositional functions as mind- and language-independent objects, and adopts a nominalist/substitutional semantics instead. I contrast PM’s approach here both to function abstraction found in the typed λ-calculus, and also to Frege’s notation for functions of various levels that forgoes abstracts altogether, between which it is a kind of intermediary. (shrink)

Certain commentators on Russell's “no class” theory, in which apparent reference to classes or sets is eliminated using higher-order quantification, including W. V. Quine and (recently) Scott Soames, have doubted its success, noting the obscurity of Russell’s understanding of so-called “propositional functions”. These critics allege that realist readings of propositional functions fail to avoid commitment to classes or sets (or something equally problematic), and that nominalist readings fail to meet the demands placed on classes by mathematics. I show that Russell (...) did thoroughly explore these issues, and had good reasons for rejecting accounts of propositional functions as extra-linguistic entities. I argue in favor of a reading taking propositional functions to be nothing over and above open formulas which addresses many such worries, and in particular, does not interpret Russell as reducing classes to language. (shrink)

Recently, I’ve championed the doctrine that fundamentally different sorts of things exist in fundamentally different ways.1 On this view, what it is for an entity to be can differ across ontological categories.2 Although historically this doctrine was very popular, and several important challenges to this doctrine have been dealt with, I suspect that contemporary metaphysicians will continue to treat this view with suspicion until it is made clearer when one is warranted in positing different modes of existence.3 I address this (...) concern here. The question of when to posit ways of being is closely related to a more general question: when should one think that some philosophically interesting expression is analogous? Accordingly, my strategy here is as follows. First, I briefly explain my interpretation of ontological pluralism, the doctrine that there are ways of being.4 Second, I introduce the notion of an analogous term, and show how, on most ways of implementing ontological pluralism, “existence” is analogous. Third, I discuss two sufficient conditions for when one is warranted in claiming that a philosophically interesting term is analogous. Fourth, I present a series of ontological schemes, each of which satisfies at least one of the sufficient conditions. The upshot is this: if you are attracted to one of these ontologies, you have reason to believe in ways of being. The careful reader will have noted the apparent modesty of my conclusion. Unfortunately, I do not believe that one could ever be rationally required to believe in ways of being. Still, in general a metaphysic is a live option to the extent that it is shown to be rationally permissible to believe. Since the apparent consensus among contemporary analytic metaphysicians is that believing that things can exist in different ways is silly or confused, establishing the rational permissibility of belief in ways of being is a non-trivial task. Let us begin. (shrink)

In his recent book, "The Metaphysicians of Meaning" (2000), Gideon Makin argues that in the so-called "Gray's Elegy" argument (the GEA) in "On Denoting", Russell provides decisive arguments against not only his own theory of denoting concepts but also Frege's theory of sense. I argue that by failing to recognize fundamental differences between the two theories, Makin fails to recognize that the GEA has less force against Frege's theory than against Russell's own earlier theory. While I agree with many aspects (...) of Makin's interpretation of the GEA, I differ with him regarding some significant details and present an interpretation according to which the GEA emerges as simpler, stronger, and more integrated. (shrink)

Faced with strong arguments to the effect that Leibniz''sPrinciple of the Identity of Indiscernibles (PII) is not a necessary truth, many supporters of the Principle have staged a strategic retreat to the claim that it is contingently true in this, the actual, world. The purpose of this paper is to examine the status of the various forms of PII in both classical and quantum physics, and it is concluded that this latter view is at best doubtful, at worst, simply wrong.

The paper critically scrutinizes the widespread idea that Russell subscribes to a "Universalist Conception of Logic." Various glosses on this somewhat under-explained slogan are considered, and their fit with Russell's texts and logical practice examined. The results of this investigation are, for the most part, unfavorable to the Universalist interpretation.

This paper is concerned with what I call the ‘problem of unity’ . This is the puzzle of how Armstrong‐like states of affairs are unified. The general approach is ‘relational internalism’: the unifier of such a state of affairs is a relation of some sort in it. A view commonly associated with relational internalism is that if such a relation satisfies a certain ‘naive’ expectation to a relation – that it is related to its relata – then Bradley's regress results. (...) As I argue, for one very natural species of relational internalism, this is indeed the case. Influential writers on the topic have therefore maintained that this relation is not related to its relata. But, as we shall see, while this ‘classic’ relational internalism obviously avoids Bradley's regress, intuitively, it fails completely to solve the problem of unity. I argue, however, that given the rejection of a natural, but unfounded, assumption of conventional relational internalism, a unique relation can unify states of affairs without leading to Bradley's regress. I consequently propose a novel version of relational internalism on which states of affairs are unified by such an entity. (shrink)

Jim Mackenzie; Evers & Walker and Forms of Knowledge, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 19, Issue 2, 30 May 2006, Pages 199–209, https://doi.org/10.

This paper argues that a consideration of the problem of providing truthmakers for negative truths undermines truthmaker theory. Truthmaker theorists are presented with an uncomfortable dilemma. Either they must take up the challenge of providing truthmakers for negative truths, or else they must explain why negative truths are exceptions to the principle that every truth must have a truthmaker. The first horn is unattractive since the prospects of providing truthmakers for negative truths do not look good neither absences, nor totality (...) states of affairs, nor Graham Priest and J.C. Beall’s ‘polarities’ (Beall, 2000; Priest, 2000) are up to the job. The second horn, meanwhile, is problematic because restricting the truthmaker principle to atomic truths, or weakening it to the thesis that truth supervenes on being, undercuts truthmaker theory’s original motivation. The paper ends by arguing that truthmaker theory is, in any case, an under-motivated doctrine because the groundedness of truth can be explained without appeal to the truthmaker principle. This leaves us free to give the ommonsensical and deflationary explanation of negative truths that common-sense suggests. (shrink)

Bertrand Russell introduced several novel ideas in his 1903 Principles of Mathematics that he later gave up and never went back to in his subsequent work. Two of these are the related notions of denoting concepts and classes as many. In this paper we reconstruct each of these notions in the framework of conceptual realism and connect them through a logic of names that encompasses both proper and common names, and among the latter, complex as well as simple common names. (...) Names, proper or common, and simple or complex, occur as parts of quantifier phrases, which in conceptual realism stand for referential concepts, i.e., cognitive capacities that inform our speech and mental acts with a referential nature and account for the intentionality, or directedness, of those acts. In Russell’s theory, quantifier phrases express denoting concepts (which do not include proper names). In conceptual realism, names, as well as predicates, can be nominalized and allowed to occur as "singular terms", i.e., as arguments of predicates. Occurring as a singular term, a name denotes, if it denotes at all, a class as many, where, as in Russell’s theory, a class as many of one object is identical with that one object, and a class as many of more than one object is a plurality, i.e., a plural object that we call a group. Also, as in Russell’s theory, there is no empty class as many. When nominalized, proper names function as "singular terms" just the way they do in so-called free logic. Leśniewski’s ontology, which is also called a logic of names can be completely interpreted within this conceptualist framework, and the well-known oddities of Leśniewski’s system are shown not to be odd at all when his system is so interpreted. Finally, we show how the pluralities, or groups, of the logic of classes as many can be used as the semantic basis of plural reference and predication. We explain in this way Russell’s "fundamental doctrine upon which all rests", i.e., "the doctrine that the subject of a proposition may be plural, and that such plural subjects are what is meant by classes [as many] which have more than one term" (Russell 1938, p. 517). (shrink)

Ethologists and others studying animal behavior in a spirit are in need of a descriptive language and method that are neither anachronistically bound by behaviorist scruples nor prematurely committed to particular Just such an interim descriptive method can be found in intentional system theory. The use of intentional system theory is illustrated with the case of the apparently communicative behavior of vervet monkeys. A way of using the theory to generate data - including usable, testable data - is sketched. The (...) underlying assumptions of this approach can be seen to ally it directly with theorizing in evolutionary biology, which has recently come under attack from Stephen Gould and Richard Lewontin, who castigate it as the Their arguments, which are strongly analogous to B. F, Skinner's arguments against point to certain pitfalls that attend the careless exercise of such thinking (and rival varieties of thinking as well), but do not constitute a fundamental objection to either adaptationist theorizing or its cousin, intentional system theory. (shrink)

A defense of Frank Jackson's knowledge argument from an objection raised by Michael Tye , according to which Mary acquires no new factual knowledge when she first sees red but, instead, merely comes to know old facts in a new way.

This chapter explores the metaphysical views about higher-order logic held by two individuals responsible for introducing it to philosophy: Gottlob Frege (1848–1925) and Bertrand Russell (1872–1970). Frege understood a function at first as the remainder of the content of a proposition when one component was taken out or seen as replaceable by others, and later as a mapping between objects. His logic employed second-order quantifiers ranging over such functions, and he saw a deep division in nature between objects and functions. (...) Russell understood propositional functions as what is obtained when constituents of propositions are replaced by variables, but eventually denied that they were entities in their own right. Both encountered contradictions when supposing there to exist as many objects as functions, and both adopted views about the meaningfulness of higher-order discourse that were difficult to state from within their own strictures. (shrink)

The paper discusses this year’s Nobel Prize in physics for experiments of entanglement “establishing the violation of Bell inequalities and pioneering quantum information science” in a much wider, including philosophical context legitimizing by the authority of the Nobel Prize a new scientific area out of “classical” quantum mechanics relevant to Pauli’s “particle” paradigm of energy conservation and thus to the Standard model obeying it. One justifies the eventual future theory of quantum gravitation as belonging to the newly established quantum information (...) science. Entanglement, involving non-Hermitian operators for its rigorous description, non-unitarity as well as nonlocal and superluminal physical signals “spookily” (by Einstein’s flowery epithet) synchronizing and transferring some nonzero action at a distance, can be considered to be quantum gravity so that its local counterpart to be Einstein’s gravitation according to general relativity therefore pioneering an alternative pathway to quantum gravitation different from the “secondary quantization” of the Standard model. So, the experiments of entanglement once they have been awarded by the Nobel Prize launch particularly the relevant theory of quantum gravitation grounded on “quantum information science” thus granted to be nonclassical quantum mechanics in the shared framework of the generalized quantum mechanics obeying rather quantum-information conservation than only energy conservation. The concept of “dark phase” of the universe naturally linked to the very well confirmed “dark matter” and “dark energy” and opposed to its “light phase” inherent to classical quantum mechanics and the Standard model obeys quantum-information conservation, after which reversible causality or the mutual transformation of energy and information are valid. The mythical Big Bang after which energy conservation holds universally is to be replaced by an omnipresent and omnitemporal medium of decoherence of the dark and nonlocal phase into the light and local phase. The former is only an integral image of the latter and borrowed in fact rather from religion than from science. Physical, methodological and proper philosophical conclusions follow from that paradigm shift heralded by this year’s Nobel Prize in physics. For example, the scientific theory of thinking should originate from the dark phase of the universe, as well: probably only approximately modeled by neural networks physically belonging to the light phase thoroughly. A few crucial philosophical sequences follow from the break of Pauli’s paradigm: (1) the establishment of the “dark” phase of the universe as opposed to its “light” phase, only to which the Cartesian dichotomy of “body” and “mind” is valid; (2) quantum information conservation as relevant to the dark phase, furthermore generalizing energy conservation as to its light phase, productively allowing for physical entities to appear “ex nihilo”, i.e., from the dark phase, in which energy and time are yet inseparable from each other; (3) reversible causality as inherent to the dark phase; (4) the interpretation of gravitation only mathematically: as an interpretation of the incompleteness of finiteness to infinity, for example, following the Gödel dichotomy (“either contradiction or incompleteness”) about the relation of arithmetic to set theory; (5) the restriction of the concept of hierarchy only to the light phase; (6) the commensurability of both physical extremes of a quantum and the universe as a whole in the dark phase obeying quantum information conservation and akin to Nicholas of Cusa’s philosophical and theological worldview. (shrink)

Following Russell, philosophers like Moltmann, Jubien, Boër, and Newman analyse ‘John believes that Mary is French’ as ‘R ’, instead of analysing it as ‘R ’. Thus, for these philosophers, instead of relations holding between agents and truth-bearing entities, propositional attitude verbs, like ‘belief’, express relations holding between agents and the properties and objects our thoughts and speech acts are about. This is also known as the Multiple Relation Theory. In this paper, I will discuss the Multiple Relation Theory primarily (...) in connection with a problem known as Schiffer’s puzzle. Schiffer first presented the puzzle to argue against the so called direct-reference theory of belief reports advocated, among others, by Salmon and Braun. I will argue that, unlike the direct-reference theory of belief reports, the Multiple Relation Theory does not provide a solution to Schiffer’s puzzle. In this connection, I will also discuss a slight modification of the Multiple Relation Theory according to which the ways the properties and objects our thoughts and speech acts are about are presented to us are part of the truth-conditions of sentences like ‘John believes that Mary is French’. We will see that prima facie such a contextualist version of the Multiple Relation Theory provides a solution to Schiffer’s puzzle. However, concluding, I will argue with new Schiffer cases that, ultimately, also a contextualist version of the Multiple Relation Theory cannot explain all instances of Schiffer’s puzzle. This will undermine the Multiple Relation Theory in general. (shrink)

La vida en el laboratorio. La construcción social de los hechos científicos (Latour y Woolgar, 1979) sostiene que los hechos y las entidades cuya existencia ha sido establecida por la ciencia no son descubrimientos sino “construcciones sociales” llevadas a cabo por los científicos mediante “versiones” o “explicaciones ordenadas” al establecer acuerdos (“cierres de controversias”). Se sostiene, siguiendo la terminología de la filosofía de la ciencia actual, que este argumento es una forma de antirrealismo científico lingüístico, tesis sustentada también por autores (...) como Richad Rorty, Nelson Goodman, Thomas Kuhn y Ludwik Fleck, que es inconsistente y que confunde niveles de lenguaje, porque al referirse metalingüísticamente a las teorías, “versiones” o descripciones científicas no diferencia entre cosas metafísicamente diferentes: la existencia (o la inexistencia) de una entidad o un hecho, y la creencia compartida o la descripción de la existencia (o la inexistencia) de esa entidad o ese hecho. Ello lo lleva a cometer el error categorial de atribuir características del lenguaje (como la de explicar o la de ser usado) a cosas que no son lingüísticas (como la naturaleza o un hecho). Si bien tanto la versión de Latour y Woolgar como las demás no diferencian entre que un conjunto de personas crean que existe lo que la ciencia afirma y las propias afirmaciones de la ciencia sobre lo que existe, ambas cosas ocurren en la realidad social, por lo que el argumento constructivista –tal como el de Goodman de que una constelación ha sido creada mediante una versión, el de Kuhn de que “los conceptos” “conforman el mundo al que se aplican” o el de que los hechos y las teorías no son categóricamente separables, el de Fleck de que la sífilis no existe independientemente de las representaciones lingüísticas de la medicina o el de Rorty de que el color de la piel de un dinosaurio depende de la descripción científica sobre él, por ejemplo-, en la medida en que niega la existencia independiente de esos hechos y entidades no es más que una forma actual de lo que se llamó idealismo metafísico, en la que no se considera como entidad primitiva las “ideas” o estados de conciencia sino hechos de sociedad humana como las afirmaciones y los significados científicos y las creencias que generan en las personas. (shrink)

This paper concerns an epistemological objection against mathematical platonism, due to Hartry Field.The argument poses an explanatory challenge – the challenge to explain the reliability of our mathematical beliefs – which the platonist, it’s argued, cannot meet. Is the objection compelling? Philosophers disagree, but they also disagree on (and are sometimes very unclear about) how the objection should be understood. Here I distinguish some options, and highlight some gaps that need to be filled in on the potentially most compelling version (...) of the argument. (shrink)

This book is in honour of Professor Anna-Sofia Maurin on her 50th birthday. It consists of eighteen essays on metaphysical issues written by Swedish and international scholars.

Contingent negative existentials give rise to a notorious paradox. I formulate a version in terms of metaphysical grounding: nonexistence can't be fundamental, but nothing can ground it. I then argue for a new kind of solution, expanding on work by Kit Fine. The key idea is that negative existentials are contingently zero-grounded – that is to say, they are grounded, but not by anything, and only in the right conditions. If this is correct, it follows that grounding cannot be an (...) internal relation, and that no complete account of reality can be purely fundamental. (shrink)

The paper argues that Plato’s dialogue form creates a Quinean “opaque context” that segregates the assertions by Plato’s characters in the dialogues from both Plato and the real world with the result that the dialogues require a hermeneutical interpretation. Sec. I argues that since the assertions in the dialogues are located inside an opaque context, the forms of life of the characters in the dialogues acquires primary philosophical importance for Plato. The second section argues that the thesis of Sec. I (...) coheres with the claim in Plato’s Seventh Letter that since philosophical truth is incommunicable by means of language it is of primary importance for philosophers to develop proper “schemes of living”. Sec. III argues since the forms of life of the characters portrayed in the dialogues is of primary philosophical importance for Plato, and since hermeneutical methods are required to interpret emerging forms of life, Plato’s dialogues are positively crafted to be read hermeneutically. Sec IV argues that Heidegger, who is famous for seeing Plato’s views as antithetical to his own hermeneutical approach, is mistaken, and that Plato’s real views are, in principle, more akin to Heidegger’s views than he thinks. (shrink)

A central problem for any truthmaker theory is the problem of negative truths. In this paper, I develop a novel, piecemeal strategy for solving this problem. The strategy puts central focus on a truth-relevant notion of aboutness within a metaphysically modest version of truthmaker theory and uses key conceptual tools gained by taking a deeper look at the best attempts to solve the problem of intentionality. I begin this task by critically discussing past proposed solutions to P-NEG in light of (...) Russell’s debate with Demos. This reveals a central difficulty with addressing the problem, specifically that one cannot be committed to incompatibility facts in one’s account of negation and of the truth of negative truths. I then present an aboutness-based version of truthmaker theory. Utilising what I call the strict and full account of aboutness, I extract aboutness-based theories of truth and falsity. I use this machinery to present a promising new strategy for solving P-NEG which does not have the problems of alternative approaches. Finally, I present and respond to some potential objections. (shrink)

According to Donnellan the characteristic mark of a referential use of a definite description is the fact that it can be used to pick out an individual that does not satisfy the attributes in the description. Friends and foes of the referential/attributive distinction have equally dismissed that point as obviously wrong or as a sign that Donnellan's distinction lacks semantic import. I will argue that, on a strict semantic conception of what it is for an expression to be a genuine (...) referential device, Donnellan is right: if a use of a definite description is referential, it must be possible for it to refer to an object independently of any attributes associated with the description, including those that constitute its conventional meaning. (shrink)

I present a reconstruction of the logical system of the Tractatus, which differs from classical logic in two ways. It includes an account of Wittgenstein’s “form-series” device, which suffices to express some effectively generated countably infinite disjunctions. And its attendant notion of structure is relativized to the fixed underlying universe of what is named. -/- There follow three results. First, the class of concepts definable in the system is closed under finitary induction. Second, if the universe of objects is countably (...) infinite, then the property of being a tautology is \Pi^1_1-complete. But third, it is only granted the assumption of countability that the class of tautologies is \Sigma_1-definable in set theory. -/- Wittgenstein famously urges that logical relationships must show themselves in the structure of signs. He also urges that the size of the universe cannot be prejudged. The results of this paper indicate that there is no single way in which logical relationships could be held to make themselves manifest in signs, which does not prejudge the number of objects. (shrink)

We investigate the conditions under which quasianalysis, i.e., Carnap's method of abstraction in his Aufbau, yields adequate results. In particular, we state both necessary and sufficient conditions for the so-called faithfulness and fullness of quasianalysis, and analyze adequacy as the conjunction of faithfulness and fullness. It is shown that there is no method of (re-)constructing properties from similarity that delivers adequate results in all possible cases, if the same set of individuals is presupposed for properties and for similarity, and if (...) similarity is a relation of finite arity. The theory is applied to various examples, including Russell's construction of temporal instants and Carnap's constitution of the phenomenal counterparts to quality spheres. Our results explain why the former is adequate while the latter is bound to fail. (shrink)

Among truthmaker theorists it is generally thought that we are not able to use the entailment principle to ground negative truths. But these theorists usually only discuss truthmakers for truth-functional complexes, thereby overlooking the fact that there are non-truth-functional complexes whose truth values are not solely determined by the truth or falsity of their atomic propositions. And once we expand the class of truths that require their own bespoke truthmakers to also include these, there is no reason to exempt negative (...) truths from grounding. For given that truthmaking is closed under entailment and every negative truths is entailed by some non-truth-functional complex or other, any resources rich enough to ground the truth of the latter will do the same job for the former. (shrink)

The orthodox view of proper names, Millianism, provides a very simple and elegant explanation of the semantic contribution of referential uses of names–names that occur as bare singulars and as the argument of a predicate. However, one problem for Millianism is that it cannot explain the semantic contribution of predicative uses of names. In recent years, an alternative view, so-called the-predicativism, has become increasingly popular. According to the-predicativists, names are uniformly count nouns. This straightforwardly explains why names can be used (...) predicatively, but is prima facie less congenial to an analysis of referential uses. To address this issue, the-predicativists argue that referential names are in fact complex determiner phrases consisting of a covert definite determiner and a count noun—and so, a referential name is a definite description. In this paper, I will argue that despite the appearance of increased theoretical complexity, the view that names are ambiguous between predicative and referential types is in fact superior to the unitary the-predicativist view. However, I will also argue that to see why this ambiguity view is better, we need to give up the standard Millian analysis. Consequently, I will first propose an alternative analysis of referential names that retains the virtues of Millianism, but provides an important explanatory connection to the predicative uses. Once this analysis of names is adopted, the explanation for why names are systematically ambiguous between referential and predicative types is both simple and elegant. Second, I will argue that the-predicativism has the appearance of being simpler than an ambiguity view, but is in fact unable to account for certain key properties of referential names without making ad hoc stipulations. (shrink)

We defend the view that an indexical uttered by an actor works on the model of deferred reference. If it defers to a character which does not exist, it is an empty term, just as‘Hamlet’and‘Ophelia’are. The utterance in which it appears does not express a proposition and thus lacks a truth value. We advocate an ontologically parsimonious, anti‐realist, position. We show how the notion of truth in our use and understanding of indexicals as they appear within a fiction is not (...) a central issue. We claim that our use and understanding of indexicals rests on the fact that their cognitive contribution is not exhausted by their semantic contribution. (shrink)

Classical (Bayesian) probability (CP) theory has led to an influential research tradition for modeling cognitive processes. Cognitive scientists have been trained to work with CP principles for so long that it is hard even to imagine alternative ways to formalize probabilities. However, in physics, quantum probability (QP) theory has been the dominant probabilistic approach for nearly 100 years. Could QP theory provide us with any advantages in cognitive modeling as well? Note first that both CP and QP theory share the (...) fundamental assumption that it is possible to model cognition on the basis of formal, probabilistic principles. But why consider a QP approach? The answers are that (1) there are many well-established empirical findings (e.g., from the influential Tversky, Kahneman research tradition) that are hard to reconcile with CP principles; and (2) these same findings have natural and straightforward explanations with quantum principles. In QP theory, probabilistic assessment is often strongly context- and order-dependent, individual states can be superposition states (that are impossible to associate with specific values), and composite systems can be entangled (they cannot be decomposed into their subsystems). All these characteristics appear perplexing from a classical perspective. However, our thesis is that they provide a more accurate and powerful account of certain cognitive processes. We first introduce QP theory and illustrate its application with psychological examples. We then review empirical findings that motivate the use of quantum theory in cognitive theory, but also discuss ways in which QP and CP theories converge. Finally, we consider the implications of a QP theory approach to cognition for human rationality. (shrink)

Classical probability models of incentive response are inadequate in where the dimensions of relative risk and the dimensions of similarity in outcome comparisons typically differ. Quantum probability models for choice in large worlds may be motivated pragmatically or metaphysically: statistical processing in the brain adapts to the true scale-relative structure of the universe.

Presentism is the view that only present entities exist. Recently, several authors have asked the question whether presentism is able to account for cross-time relations, i.e., roughly, relations between entities existing at different times. In this paper I claim that this question is to be answered in the affirmative. To make this claim plausible, I consider four types of cross-time relation and show how each can be accommodated without difficulty within the metaphysical framework of presentism.

Evidence is drawn together to connect sources of inconsistency that Frege discerned in his foundations for arithmetic with the origins of the paradox derived by Russell in "Basic Laws" I and then with antinomies, paradoxes, contradictions, riddles associated with modal and intensional logics. Examined are: Frege's efforts to grasp logical objects; the philosophical arguments that compelled Russell to adopt a description theory of names and a eliminative theory of descriptions; the resurfacing of issues surrounding reference, descriptions, identity, substitutivity, paradox in (...) the debates concerning modal and intensional logics; the development of the New Theory of Reference. I consider this to be the philosophical ground upon which the debates regarding that theory should take place. (shrink)

This paper identifies the founding project of traditional philosophy of language as an attempt to unify the diversity and individuality of spoken language in order to produce a transpersonal intelligibility. The supposed necessary truth that we cannot directly understand what others say which underlies such a project is exposed as a willful avoidance of the discourse of others typical of masculine styles of communication.

Platonism, considered as a philosophy of mathematics, can be formulated in two interestingly different ways. Strong platonism holds that numerals, for example, refer to certain non-physical, non-mental entities. Weak platonism holds only that numerals uniquely apply to certain non-physical, non-mental entities. (Of course, there may even be weaker views that deserve to be called ‘platonistic.’The distinction between referring to an object and uniquely applying to an object may be illustrated as follows. If there is a tallest person and I say, (...) ‘the tallest person is over seven feet tall,’ without knowing who that person is, then my use of ‘the tallest person’ uniquely applies to someone, but it does not refer to anyone. The distinction is at least as old as Russell, for we might put his views in our terms by saying that for Russell only logically proper names refer to things, while ordinary proper names and definite descriptions at best uniquely apply to things. (shrink)

In ‘The Status of Content,’ Paul Boghossian points out an embarrassment in which A.J. Ayer finds himself in his extensive irrealism. Ayer embraces both an emotivist theory of ethics and a deflationary theory of truth. According to an emotivist theory, sentences that look like perfectly good declarative sentences, such as ‘One ought not to kill,’ should be interpreted as non-declarative sentences. According to a deflationary theory of truth, ‘truth’ is not a predicate of sentences, and sentences of the form ‘“p” (...) is true’ are equivalent to sentences of the form ‘p.’ Boghossian argues that emotivism and deflationism turn out to be incompatible.Boghossian's criticism should not be presented before we ask this question: What motivates Ayer's subversion of surface grammar? A typical motivation to provide an analysis of a certain region of discourse is to find a way in which patterns of inference and compositionality could be more perspicuously presented. (shrink)

Kripke, Putnam and others have proposed what is often called The New Theory of Reference. Professor Matthen thinks that this theory needs to be modified in various ways: so as to avert misunderstandings about the New Theory's commitment to essentialism; so as to clarify the semantic function of what he calls “nonconnoting terms”; so as to answer Quinean doubts about the determinacy of ostension; so as to correct Putnam's “simplistic” account of ostension; so as to solve Kripke's puzzle about the (...) seemingly inconsistent beliefs of the bilingual Pierre; and so as to show how many ordinary names, contra Kripke and Putnam, can be treated as “equivalent” to definite descriptions. No doubt many of the other things he says in his paper are clever, and perhaps even true. But as to the six modifications I have listed, I have run into difficulties. To the extent that I am able to understand them, I have been forced to conclude that they are neither needed nor helpful. (shrink)