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)

The traditional scope theory of intensionality (STI) (see Russell 1905; Montague 1973; Ladusaw 1977; Ogihara 1992, 1996; Stowell 1993) is simple, elegant, and, for the most part, empirically adequate. However, a few quite troubling counterexamples to this theory have lead researchers to propose alternatives, such as positing null situation pronouns (Percus 2000) or actuality operators (Kamp 1971; Cresswell 1990) in the syntax of natural language. These innovative theories do correct the undergeneration of the original scope theory, but at a cost: (...) the situation pronoun and operator theories overgenerate, as argued extensively by Percus (2000) and Keshet (2008). This paper presents new data that supports the STI over other analyses, such as structures where DPs lose their de re readings in positions where syntactic movement is blocked. These data point the way to a new theory of intensionality. This new theory, called split intensionality, is a modification of the STI which aims to solve the problems raised for the original scope theory without overgenerating. The proposal calls for an additional intensional abstraction operator that creates an expression denoting an intension from an expression denoting an extension. When a DP moves to a position above this operator, it is interpreted de re; otherwise it is de dicto. The crucial part of the new proposal is that a DP may move above this operator and yet remain, for instance, below an intentional verb or inside an if-clause. Therefore, a DP within an island for syntactic movement may be de re and yet not move out of the island when the intensional abstraction operator is also within the island. (shrink)

This paper uses the distribution and interpretation of antonymous adjectives in comparative constructions as an empirical basis to argue that abstract representations of measurement, or ‘degrees’, must be modeled as intervals on a scale, rather than as points, as commonly assumed. I begin by demonstrating that the facts in this domain must be accounted for in terms of the interaction of the semantics of adjectival polarity and the semantics of the comparative, rather than principles governing the (overt) expression of particular (...) types of adjectives in comparatives. I then show that a principled account of the full range of data under consideration can be constructed within a model in which degrees are formalized as intervals on a scale and adjectival polarity is characterized in terms of two structurally distinct and complementary sorts of `positive' and `negative' degrees. (shrink)

The dominant account of propositions holds that they are structured entities that have, as constituents, the semantic values of the constituents of the sentences that express them. Since such theories hold that propositions are structured, in some sense, like the sentences that express them, they must provide an answer to what I will call Soames’ Question: “What level, or levels, of sentence structure does semantic information incorporate?”. As it turns out, answering Soames’ Question is no easy task. I argue in (...) this paper that the two most promising ways of answering it, the Logical Form Account and the LF Account, are both unsatisfactory. This result casts doubt on the very idea that propositions are structured. (shrink)

An "overview article" that (a) clarifies the nature of theological anti-realism and how that thesis should be formulated, and (b) negatively assesses some of the most common arguments for being a theological anti-realist.

Abstract Recent criticisms of intuition from experimental philosophy and elsewhere have helped undermine the authority of traditional conceptual analysis. As the product of more empirically informed philosophical methodology, this result is compelling and philosophically salutary. But the negative critiques rarely suggest a positive alternative. In particular, a normative account of concept determination—how concepts should be characterized—is strikingly absent from such work. Carnap's underappreciated theory of explication provides such a theory. Analyses of complex concepts in empirical sciences illustrates and supports this (...) claim, and counteracts the charge explication is only suitable for highly mathematical, axiomatic contexts. Explication is also defended against the influential criticism it is “philosophically unilluminating”. Content Type Journal Article Category Original paper in Philosophy of Science Pages 1-19 DOI 10.1007/s13194-011-0027-5 Authors James Justus, Philosophy Department, Florida State University and University of Sydney, Tallahassee, FL 32306, USA Journal European Journal for Philosophy of Science Online ISSN 1879-4920 Print ISSN 1879-4912. (shrink)

Just Words: On Speech and Hidden Harm, by McGowanMary Kate. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019. Pp. xi + 209.

This paper argues that mental models of discourse are key in any theory of the interpretation of definite descriptions. It considers both referential and attributive uses of such descriptions, in the sense introduced by Donnellan.

In this paper, I provide a brief overview of the development of analytic philosophy in the Philippines. I first highlight the circumstances that led to its inception in the late 1930s, and some of the notable works by prominent Filipino analytic philosophers that helped shape the tradition. Next, I discuss the socio-political climate in the late 1950s through the 1970s that may have led some Filipino philosophers to move away from analytic philosophy. Finally, I explore some signs of its re-emergence (...) in the late twentieth century and its possible trajectories in the twenty-first century. (shrink)

Stephen Yablo has argued for metaontological antirealism: he believes that the sentences claiming or denying the existence of numbers (or other abstract entities or mereological sums) are inapt for truth valuation, because the reference failure of a numerical singular term (or a singular term for an abstract entity or a mereological sum) would not produce a truth value gap in any sentence containing that term. At the same time, Yablo believes that nothing similar applies to singular terms that aim to (...) refer to an entity whose existence or non-existence is a factual matter, e.g. ‘the king of France’: the failure of the presupposition that there is a unique French king makes some sentences with the term ‘the king of France’, in particular “The king of France is bald”, gappy. In this paper I will show that the sentence “The king of France is bald” must be false, and not gappy, according to Yablo’s own criteria and that, furthermore, the presupposition that the term ‘the king of France’ refers presents a fail-safe mechanism in the same way Yablo thinks abstract presuppositions do—this undermines his argument for metaontological antirealism. (shrink)

Susan Stebbing’s work on incomplete symbols and analysis was instrumental in clarifying, sharpening, and improving the project of logical constructions which was pivotal to early analytic philosophy. She dispelled use-mention confusions by restricting the term ‘incomplete symbol’ to expressions eliminable through analysis, rather than those expressions’ purported referents, and distinguished linguistic analysis from analysis of facts. In this paper I explore Stebbing’s role in analytic philosophy’s development from anti-holism, presupposing that analysis terminates in simples, to the more holist or foundherentist (...) analytic philosophy of the later 20th century. I read Stebbing as a transitional figure who made room for more holist analytic movements, e.g., applications of incomplete symbol theory to Quinean ontological commitment. Stebbing, I argue, is part of a historical narrative which starts with the holism of Bradley, an early influence on her, to which Moore and Russell’s logical analysis was a response. They countered Bradley’s holist reservations about facts with the view that the world is built up out of individually knowable simples. Stebbing, a more subtle and sympathetic reader of the British idealists, defends analysis, but with important refinements and caveats which prepared the way for a return to foundherentism and holism within analytic philosophy. (shrink)

When we use a directly referential expression to denote an object, do we incur an ontological commitment to that object, as Russell and Barcan Marcus held? Not according to Quine, whose regimented language has only variables as denoting expressions, but no constants to model direct reference. I make a case for a more liberal conception of ontological commitment—more wide-ranging than Quine’s—which allows for commitment to individuals, with an improved logical language of regimentation. The reason for Quine’s prohibition on commitment to (...) individuals, I argue, is that his choice of regimented language is heavily informed by his holist epistemology, in which objects are introduced via a description of their explanatory role. But non-holists can coherently attempt to commit to individuals using directly referential expressions, modelled in a formal language as constants. While holding on to the insight that a logical language is a helpful medium for ontology, I propose instead a more permissive language of regimentation, one expanded to permit the use of constants to record attempts to commit to individuals, which allows us to make sense of non-holist theories with alternative name-based or name-and-variable-based criteria of ontological commitment as well as Quinean theories. (shrink)

This essay offers a detailed philosophical criticism of Frege’s popular thesis that identity is a relation of names. I consider Frege’s position as articulated both in ‘On Sense and Reference’, and in the Grundgesetze, where he appears to take an objectual view of identity, arguing that in both cases Frege is clearly committed to the proposition that identity is a relation holding between names, on the grounds that two different things can never be identical. A counterexample to Frege’s thesis is (...) considered, and a positive thesis is developed according to which, in contradistinction to the Fregean position, identity is a reflexive, symmetric, and transitive relation holding only between a thing and itself which can be expressed as a relation between names. (shrink)

Nāgārjuna, the famous founder of the Madhyamika School, proposed the positive catuṣkoṭi in his seminal work, Mūlamadhyamakakārikā: ‘All is real, or all is unreal, all is both real and unreal, all is neither unreal nor real; this is the graded teaching of the Buddha’. He also proposed the negative catuṣkoṭi: ‘“It is empty” is not to be said, nor “It is non-empty,” nor that it is both, nor that it is neither; [“empty”] is said only for the sake of instruction’ (...) and the no-thesis view: ‘No dharma whatsoever was ever taught by the Buddha to anyone’. In this essay, I adopt Gricean pragmatics to explain the positive and negative catuṣkoṭi and the no-thesis view proposed by Nāgārjuna in a way that does not violate classical logic. For Nāgārjuna, all statements are false as long as the hearer understands them within a reified conceptual scheme, according to which substance is a basic categorical concept; substances have svabhāva, and names and sentences have svabhāva. (shrink)

I argue that mental descriptivism cannot be reasonably thought superior to rival theories on the grounds that it can (while they cannot) provide an elegant account of reference failure. Descriptivism about the particular-directed intentionality of our mental states fails when applied to desires. Consider, for an example, the desire that Satan not tempt me. On the descriptivist account, it looks like my desire would be fulfilled in conditions in which there exists exactly one thing satisfying some description only Satan satisfies (...) (call it the Satanic Description). However, against this analysis, it is clearly compatible with desiring that Satan not tempt me that I also desire that there exist nothing satisfying the Satanic Description. The descriptivist has room for maneuver here, but the cost of accommodating this phenomenon is that the descriptivist shall no longer be able to use her theory to ameliorate the possibility of reference failure. (shrink)

What does it take for Islam and science to engage in a genuine conversation with each other? This essay is an attempt to answer this question by clarifying the conditions which make having such a conversation possible and plausible. I will first distinguish between three notions of conversation: the trivial conversation (which requires sharing a common language and the meaning of its ordinary expressions), superficial conversation (in which although the language is shared, the communicators fail to share the meaning of (...) their theoretical terms), and genuine conversation (which implies sharing the language and the meaning of ordinary as well as theoretical terms). I will then argue that our real concern with regard to the exchange between Islam and science is to be to specify the conditions under which their proponents can engage in a genuine conversation with each other and that such a conversation to take place essentially requires sharing a common ontology. Following Quine, I will argue that Muslims, like the followers of any religion, would have no other choice but to work from within science. Doing so, however, would not prevent Muslims from having a genuine conversation with the proponents of other worldviews because when the shared ontology fails to offer any potentially testable answer to our remaining questions about the world, the Islamic viewpoint can appear as a genuine alternative among other underdetermined ones, deciding between which would be a matter of pragmatic criteria. (shrink)

Mirdamad, a prominent philosopher of the Late Medieval Period active in the Islamic world, regards existence as nothing in reality. In this paper, I employ methods devised by contemporary analytic...

Williamson has forcefully argued that Fitch's argument shows that the domain of the unknowable is non-empty. And he exhorts us to make more inroads into the land of the unknowable. Concluding his discussion of Fitch's argument, he writes: " Once we acknowledge that [the domain of the unknowable] is non-empty, we can explore more effectively its extent. … We are only beginning to understand the deeper limits of our knowledge. " I shall formulate and evaluate a new argument concerning the (...) domain of the unknowable. It is an argument about knowability. More specifically, it is an argument about what we can know about the natural numbers. Since the domain of discourse will be the natural numbers structure, the notion of knowability can for the purposes of the argument be identified with a priori knowability or – which amounts to the same thing – absolute provability .Suppose, for a reductio, that there exists a property θ of natural numbers such that it is provable that for some natural number n, θ is true but unprovable. …. (shrink)

The later Wittgenstein famously holds that an understanding which tries to run up against the limits of language bumps itself and results in nothing but plain nonsense. Therefore, the task of philosophy cannot be to create an ‘ideal’ language so as to produce a ‘real’ understanding in the first place; its aim must be to remove particular misunderstandings by clarifying the use of our ordinary language. Accordingly, Wittgenstein opposes both the sublime terms of traditional philosophy and the formal frameworks of (...) modern logics---and adheres to a pointedly casual, colloquial style in his own philosophizing. However, there seems to lurk a certain inconsistency in Wittgenstein’s ordinary language approach: his philosophical remarks frequently remain enigmatic, and many of the terms Wittgenstein coins appear to be highly technical. Thus, one might wonder whether his verdicts on the limits of language and on philosophical jargons might not be turned against his own practice. The present essay probes the extent to which the contravening tendencies in Wittgenstein’s mature philosophy might be reconciled. Section 2 sketches Wittgenstein’s general approach to philosophy and tracks the special role that the language of everyday life occupies therein. Section 3 reconstructs Wittgenstein’s preferred method for philosophy, which he calls perspicuous representation, and argues that this method implements an aesthetic conception of philosophy and a poetic approach to philosophical language, in which philosophical insights are not explicitly stated, but mediated through well-worded and creatively composed descriptions. Section 4 discusses how Wittgenstein’s philosophical poetics relates to artificial terminologies and grammars in philosophy and science. (shrink)

The article provides a language analysis of the idea of progress. It briefly outlines the method of search for minimal vocabulary as has been proposed by Bertrand Russell in Human Knowledge, Its Scope and Limits. Then it considers the application of this method to a social theory, namely to the language used in a theory of progress. As an example theory it uses the well known essay L’anciene regime et la revolution by Alexis de Tocqueville. The language of the theory (...) is analyzed, abstracted expressions are pointed out and the minimal vocabulary is presented: it consists of verb-expressions “to see”, “to be wrong”, “to doubt”, “to think”, “to feel”, “to be surprised”, “to choose”, “to express” and “to rely”; of noun-expressions “demise”, “cause”, “change”, “nature” and “banality” together with pronouns and logical expressions. The rules for construction of composed expressions and propositions are set up and a reconstruction of the object language is suggested. The abstract character of the method is reflected. (shrink)

In his groundbreaking Grundlagen, Frege (1884) pointed out that number words like ‘four’ occur in ordinary language in two quite different ways and that this gives rise to a philosophical puzzle. On the one hand ‘four’ occurs as an adjective, which is to say that it occurs grammatically in sentences in a position that is commonly occupied by adjectives. Frege’s example was (1) Jupiter has four moons, where the occurrence of ‘four’ seems to be just like that of ‘green’ in (...) (2) Jupiter has green moons. On the other hand, ‘four’ occurs as a singular term, which is to say that it occurs in a position that is commonly occupied by paradigmatic cases of singular terms, like proper names: (3) The number of moons of Jupiter is four. Here ‘four’ seems to be just like ‘Wagner’ in (4) The composer of Tannhäuser is Wagner, and both of these statements seem to be identity statements, ones with which we claim that what two singular terms stand for is identical. But that number words can occur both as singular terms and as adjectives is puzzling. Usually adjectives cannot occur in a position occupied by a singular term, and the other way round, without resulting in ungrammaticality and nonsense. To give just one example, it would be ungrammatical to replace ‘four’ with ‘the number of moons of Jupiter’ in (1): (5) *Jupiter has the number of moons of Jupiter moons. This ungrammaticality results even though ‘four’ and ‘the number of moons of Jupiter’ are both apparently singular terms standing for the same object in (3). So, how can it be that number words can occur both as singular terms and as adjectives, while other adjectives cannot occur as singular terms, and other singular terms cannot occur as adjectives? (shrink)

Sentences in context have semantic contents determined by a range of factors both internal and external to speakers. I argue against the thesis that semantic content is transparent to speakers in the sense of being immediately accessible to speakers in virtue of their linguistic competence.

The authors believe that the questions raised at the beginning of Frege’s On Sense and Reference – ‘Is [identity] a relation? A relation between objects, or between names or signs of objects?’ – set the course for a long-lasting but not at all satisfying discussion. For the disputants tend to advocate, either a ‘name-view’ of identity in a straightforward but rudimentary and logically untenable form, or else a version of an ‘object-view’ that makes all too light of the analysandum–analysans distinction (...) and hence is damned to analytical barrenness. In contrast, by unfolding the underlying idea of the original ‘name-view’, the authors offer three alternative and mutually compatible interpretations of identity that may best be characterized as the ‘name-based’, the ‘hybrid’ and the ‘sense-based’ variant of a ‘concept-view of identity’. At the same time, however, these interpretations may well be considered variants of a non-barren ‘object-view’. (shrink)

My belief that Socrates was wise, and your belief that Socrates was mortal can be said to have a common focus, insofar as both these thoughts are about Socrates. In Peter Geach’s terminology, the objects of our beliefs bear the feature of intentional identity, because our beliefs share the same putative target. But what if it turned out that Socrates never existed? Can a pair of thoughts share a common focus if the object both thoughts are about, does not actually, (...) really exist? Object-centric accounts of intentionality which explain the aboutness or directedness of thought in terms of the intentional object the thought in question is about, contend that thoughts which share a common focus do so in virtue of both thoughts simply being about the same intentional object. However, Alexander Sandgren contends that such theories face difficulties in explaining a puzzle of intentional identity put forward by Walter Edelberg, in which a pair of sentences seem to differ in truth value but are purportedly logically equivalent on the object-centric theory. If this is right, then it seems that any account which explains intentionality with reference to an intentional object is threatened by this result, whether this object be abstract, merely possible, Meinongian, or otherwise. In this paper, I argue that Edelberg’s Puzzle is analogous to Frege’s Puzzle and the same tools conventionally used to solve Frege’s Puzzle can be used to solve Edelberg’s Puzzle. I then propose a new object-centric solution to Edelberg’s Puzzle which takes into account modes of presentation and which is able to accommodate all the relevant linguistic data. (shrink)

There is today much interest in research of neuronal substrata in metaphor processing. It has been suggested that the right hemisphere yields a key role in the comprehension of figurative language and, particularly, in metaphors. Figurative language is included in pragmatics, a branch of linguistics that researches the use of language, in opposition to the study of the system of language. There lingers, though, an open debate in respect to the identification of the specific aspects concerning semantics, as opposed to (...) those dominated by pragmatics. Can studies from neuronal correlates clarify questions that relate to semantics/pragmatics representation? I shall analyze neuroscientific developments about implicit language to attempt to understand, in section 2, scientific techniques available and more suitable to the phenomenology of the act of understanding an implicit, figurative or implicated message in a certain language game. To do so, I shall start by reviewing the studies in philosophy of language, and accommodate the development of the research in pragmatics underlying metaphor, particularly, in Philosophical Investigations by Wittgenstein. Finally, I discuss the possibility of interpretative capabilities being socioculturally grounded. I expect this methodological analysis to contribute to the enlightenment of the problem of phenomenology of intersubjective pragmatics, and to its future experimental paradigms. (shrink)

Presupposition is the semantic-pragmatic phenomenon whereby a statement contains an implicit precondition that must be taken for granted for that statement to be felicitous. This article discusses the role of presupposition in legislative texts, using examples from Swiss constitutional and administrative law. It illustrates how presuppositions are triggered in these texts and what functions they come to serve, placing special emphasis on their constitutive power. It also demonstrates how legislative drafters can distinguish between “good” presuppositions and “bad” presuppositions by weighing (...) their main advantage, conciseness, against their main flaw, reduced transparency. The present study argues that, if employed carefully, presuppositions can be a useful stylistic means to keep legislative texts free from unnecessary clutter that merely elaborates on the obvious; however, it also suggests that, if applied wrongly, presuppositions can camouflage the duties and obligations placed on the subjects of a law and thus impede its accessibility and its efficient and effective implementation. (shrink)

The focus of the article is the self-predication principle, according to which the/a such-and-such is such-and-such. We consider contemporary approaches (Frege, Russell, Meinong) to the self-predication principle, as well as fourteenth-century approaches (Burley, Ockham, Buridan). In crucial ways, the Ockham-Buridan view prefigures Russell’s view, and Burley’s view shows a striking resemblance to Meinong’s view. In short the Russell-Ockham-Buridan view holds: no existence, no truth. The Burley-Meinong view holds, in short: intelligibility suffices for truth. Both views approach self-predication in a uniform (...) way. We were unable to find a medieval philosopher who, like Frege, approaches self-predication in a non-uniform way. We do not want to dispute that there are also considerable differences between the contemporary and the fourteenth-century approach to self-predication. Importantly, fourteenth-century accounts of self-predication rely strongly on the identity theory of predication, and this theory is not endorsed by contemporary philosophers of language. Nevertheless, some basic tenets seem to us to be clearly shared between fourteenth-century and contemporary thinkers. (shrink)

The central topic of this article is (the possibility of) de re knowledge about natural numbers and its relation with names for numbers. It is held by several prominent philosophers that (Peano) numerals are eligible for existential quantification in epistemic contexts (‘canonical’), whereas other names for natural numbers are not. In other words, (Peano) numerals are intimately linked with de re knowledge about natural numbers, whereas the other names for natural numbers are not. In this article I am looking for (...) an explanation of this phenomenon. It is argued that the standard induction scheme plays a key role. (shrink)

This essay explores the validity of Gregory Boyd’s open theistic account of the nature of the future. In particular, it is an investigation into whether Boyd’s logical square of opposition for future contingents provides a model of reality for free will theists that can preserve both bivalence and a classical conception of omniscience. In what follows, I argue that it can.

In this essay, we propose that Peirce’s Existential Graphs can derive the desired uniqueness implication (or in a weaker claim, the definite description readings) of donkey pronouns in conjunctive discourse (A man walks in the park. He whistles), without postulating a separate category of E-type pronouns.

This paper explains how an assertion may be understood despite there being nothing said or meant by the assertion. That such understanding is possible is revealed by cases of the so-called ``felicitous underspecification'' of demonstratives: cases where there is understanding of an assertion containing a demonstrative despite the interlocutors not settling on one or another object as the one the speaker is talking about (King 2014a, 2017, 2021). I begin by showing how Stalnaker's ([1978] 1999) well-known pragmatic principles adequately permit (...) and constrain the felicitous underspecification of demonstratives. I then establish a connection between the satisfaction of Stalnaker's principles and understanding, and show how that connection sheds further light on the relevant cases. After developing and motivating my proposal, I address some objections to it, then briefly discuss the felicitous underspecification of expressions other than demonstratives alongside contrasting my proposal with a similar one from Bowker (2015, 2019) that concerns definite descriptions. (shrink)

In this paper, I aim to reconstruct and discuss Stanley Cavell’s interpretation and critique of analytic philosophy. Cavell objects to the tradition of analytic philosophy that, in its eagerness to provide abstract, theoretical reconstructions, it has failed to understand the importance of “the human voice” for philosophy. First, I outline Cavell’s retelling of the history of analytic philosophy from Frege and Russell to ordinary language philosophy. Second, I turn to Cavell’s reading of Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein in order to show what (...) the suppression of the human voice is supposed to mean and entail. Central to Cavell’s account is a particular view of language according to which no structure can explain our capacity for sense-making. Third, I exemplify Cavell’s approach by analyzing his debate with Kripke. Kripke sees the absence of “rails” determining meaning as a skeptical problem and calls for a communal solution. Cavell, by contrast, accepts the absence of rails while highlighting the need for individual responsiveness. In the conclusion I contrast the analytic interest in theory, structure, and abstraction with what I see as Cavell’s humanism. While respectful of key aspects of the analytic tradition such as its commitment to rigor and transparency, Cavell wished to bring the human subject back into philosophy. (shrink)

We examine a crucial question for the World Wide Web: What does a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) mean? Crucial for the next-generation Semantic Web, can it refer to things outside web-pages? The Web is a universal information space for naming and accessing information via URIs. However, the classical philosophical problems of meaning and reference that have been the source of debate within the philosophy of language return when the Web is given as the foundation for a knowledge representation with the (...) Semantic Web. Debates on the Semantic Web about the meaning and referential status of a URI are explored as analogues to debates about the meaning and reference of names in the philosophy of language. Three main positions are inspected: the logical position, as exemplified by the descriptivist theory of reference, the direct reference position, as exemplified by Putnam and Kripke’s causal theory of reference, and a Wittgensteinian position that views URIs as a public language, as exemplified by Web search engines. These positions show that debates within the philosophy of language are alive and well on the Web, and so in the philosophy of computer science. (shrink)

In “Double Vision Two Questions about the Neo-Fregean Programme”, John MacFarlane’s raises two main questions: (1) Why is it so important to neo-Fregeans to treat expressions of the form ‘the number of Fs’ as a species of singular term? What would be lost, if anything, if they were analysed instead as a type of quantifier-phrase, as on Russell’s Theory of Definite Descriptions? and (2) Granting—at least for the sake of argument—that Hume’s Principle may be used as a means of implicitly (...) defining the number operator, what advantage, if any, does adopting this course possess over a direct stipulation of the Dedekind-Peano axioms? This paper attempts to answer them. In response to the first, we spell out the links between the recognition of numerical terms as vehicles of singular reference and the conception of numbers as possible objects of singular, or object-directed, thought, and the role of the acknowledgement of numbers as objects in the neo-Fregean attempt to justify the basic laws of arithmetic. In response to the second, we argue that the crucial issue concerns the capacity of either stipulation—of Hume’s Principle, or of the Dedekind-Peano axioms—to found knowledge of the principles involved, and that in this regard there are crucial differences which explain why the former stipulation can, but the latter cannot, play the required foundational role. (shrink)

Since 2016, there has been an explosion of academic work and journalism that fixes its subject matter using the terms ‘fake news’ and ‘post-truth’. In this paper, I argue that this terminology is not up to scratch, and that academics and journalists ought to completely stop using the terms ‘fake news’ and ‘post-truth’. I set out three arguments for abandonment. First, that ‘fake news’ and ‘post-truth’ do not have stable public meanings, entailing that they are either nonsense, context-sensitive, or contested. (...) Secondly, that these terms are unnecessary, because we already have a rich vocabulary for thinking about epistemic dysfunction. Thirdly, I observe that ‘fake news’ and ‘post-truth’ have propagandistic uses, meaning that using them legitimates anti-democratic propaganda, and runs the risk of smuggling bad ideology into conversations. (shrink)

The paper, in Part 1, is devoted to discussing the underlying logic and algebra of the classical mechanics and quantum mechanics, their syntax and semantics, the reasons for their differences and the diagrammatic representations of the two. This part of the paper also demonstrates that there are several puzzling characters of microphysical phenomena by alluding to the relevant details of the double-slit experiment. These counterintuitive results of the experiment make it difficult to explain the empirical success and realist commitments of (...) quantum mechanics. The second part, Part 2, of the paper is concerned with the question as to how conceptual schemes of scientists interact with the world such that the problem of new meaning and reference of the microphysical terms could be determined. The paper refrains from having a general discussion on Realism and do not venture into a comprehensive survey and critique of all known varieties of realistic interpretations. It selects only a few forms of realism (based on the reasons given) in investigating microphysical phenomena forming part of QM. These selected forms of realism explain how does conceptual scheme/terms in scientific theory hookup to the objects and their relations in the world based on the model-theoretic character of the scientific theory and causal rigidified descriptivism of scientific terms (vide Putnam) as well as scientist’s interaction with the world, say, in the “instrumental context of laboratory” (vide Heelan) such that the problem of meaning and reference could be resolved. The paper claims that convergence of the two views may result in a particular form of realism, the Hermeneuticized Internal Realism, appropriate for the science of microphysical phenomena. (shrink)

Intentionality, or the power of minds to be about, to represent, or to stand for things, remains central in the philosophy of mind. But the study of intentionality in the analytic tradition has been dominated by discussions of propositional attitudes such as belief, desire, and visual perception. There are, however, intentional states that aren't obviously propositional attitudes. For example, Indiana Jones fears snakes, Antony loves Cleopatra, and Jane hates the monster under her bed. The present paper explores such mental states (...) in an introductory but opinionated way. (shrink)

This paper offers a positive account of an important but under-explored class of mental states, non-propositional attitudes such as loving one’s department, liking lattice structures, fearing Freddy Krueger, and hating Sherlock Holmes. In broadest terms, the view reached is a representationalist account guided by two puzzles. The proposal allows one to say in an elegant way what differentiates a propositional attitude from an attitude merely about a proposition. The proposal also allows one to offer a unified account of the non-propositional (...) attitudes that captures both empty and non-empty cases by properly locating the posited representations in the metaphysical structure of the attitudes. (shrink)

In this reply, I take up the challenges the five respondents raised. In particular, I deal with the issues of truth, bivalence, tolerance, and justification.

In his late philosophy, Quine generalized the structuralist view in the philosophy of mathematics that mathematical theories are indifferent to the ontology we choose for them. According to his ‘global structuralism’, the choice of objects does not matter to any scientific theory. In the literature, this doctrine is mainly understood as an epistemological thesis claiming that the empirical evidence for a theory does not depend on the choice of its objects. The present paper proposes a new interpretation suggested by Quine’s (...) recently published Kant Lectures from 1980 according to which his global structuralism is a semantic thesis that belongs to his theory of ontological reduction. It claims that a theory can always be reformulated in such a way that its truth does not presuppose the existence of the original objects, but only of some objects that can be considered as their proxies. Quine derives this claim from the principle of the semantic primacy of sentences, which is supposed to license the ontological reductions he uses to establish his global structuralism. It is argued that these reductions do not actually work because they do not account for some hidden ontological commitments that are not detected by his criterion of ontological commitment. (shrink)