Conditions for description are general rules to which language must conform if it is to serve descriptive purposes. It is argued that the existence of such rules renders scepticism about them incoherent. The only way we can decide whether or not there are such conditions is by seeing in practice whether or not there are certain rules such that we cannot in fact break them without making language unfit for describing. The case is similar to that of, e.g., the law (...) of contradiction, which is itself a condition for description. If we find other conditions, the sceptic, like anyone else, will have to accept that he is bound by them no less than he is bound by the law of contradiction. (shrink)

By analyzing the meaning of time I argue, without endorsing operationalism, that time is necessarily related to physical systems which can serve as clocks. This leads to a version of relationism about time which entails that there is no time 'before' the universe. Three notions of metaphysical 'time' (associated, respectively, with time as a mathematical concept, substantivalism, and modal relationism) which might support the idea of time 'before' the universe are discussed. I argue that there are no good reasons to (...) believe that metaphysical 'time' can be identified with what we ordinarily call time. I also briefly review and criticize the idea of time 'before' the big bang, associated with some recent speculative models in modern cosmology, and I argue that if the big bang model is a (roughly) correct description of our universe, then the best current answer to the question in the title is that time did have a beginning. (shrink)

In this manuscript we initiate a systematic examination of the physical basis for the time concept in cosmology. We discuss and defend the idea that the physical basis of the time concept is necessarily related to physical processes which could conceivably take place among the material constituents available in the universe. As a consequence we motivate the idea that one cannot, in a well-defined manner, speak about time ‘before’ such physical processes were possible, and in particular, the idea that one (...) cannot speak about a time scale ‘before’ scale-setting physical processes were possible. It is common practice to link the concept of cosmic time with a space-time metric set up to describe the universe at large scales, and then define a cosmic time t as what is measured by a comoving standard clock. We want to examine, however, the physical basis for setting up a comoving reference frame and, in particular, what could be meant by a standard clock. For this purpose we introduce the concept of a `core' of a clock and we ask if such a core can - in principle - be found in the available physics contemplated in the various `stages' of the early universe. We find that a first problem arises above the quark-gluon phase transition where there might be no bound systems left, and the concept of a physical length scale to a certain extent disappears. A more serious problem appears above the electroweak phase transition believed to occur at $\sim 10^{-11}$ seconds. At this point the property of mass disappears and it becomes difficult to identify a physical basis for concepts like length scale, energy scale and temperature - which are all intimately linked to the concept of time in modern cosmology. This situation suggests that the concept of a time scale in `very early' universe cosmology lacks a physical basis or, at least, that the time scale will have to be based on speculative new physics. (shrink)

Common Sense and Logic in Jan Smedslund's 'Psycho-logic'. This paper is about the efforts the norwegian psychologist Jan Smedslund made in analyzing and checking philosophically his theory called 'Psycho-logic'. I am going to reconstruct and discuss the debates between Smedslund and several critics, which have been going on since about 1978, mainly in the "Scandinavian Journal of Psychology". A result will be that the kind of modal logics Smedslund uses - a type with realistic semantics and epistemology - is not (...) the proper one for the analysis of 'Psycho-logic'. (shrink)

The word 'sceptic' usually refers to a theoretical figure whose philosophical importance lies exclusively in his challenge to any attempt to justify the belief in the possibility of knowledge. But the label was once applied to living persons - the so-called Pyrrhonists - whose scepticism encompassed a way of life. Following Sextus Empiricus's portrayal of the Pyrrhonists, Arne Naess has provided comprehensive arguments both in rebuttal of the frequent claims either that scepticism is logically inconsistent or that at least it (...) is impossible to put into practice, and in support of scepticism as a fruitful philosophical attitude. The present essay attempts a critical consolidation of Naess's case for scepticism by drawing more explicitly than he does on his work in empirical semantics. The notion of degrees of preciseness is used to outline a philosophically interesting rationale for the Pyrrhonist's persistent abstention from any act or action that commits him to the truth of a proposition, and also to indicate why possible, or even inevitable lapses on the Pyrrhonist's part need not seriously prejudice either his status as a sceptic or the philosophical value of his sceptical ideal. (shrink)

This book is a synthesis of more than three decades of research into the concept of time and its semiotic nature. If traditional philosophy – and philosophy of time should be no exception – in the shadow of advancing biology can be said to have reached an impasse, one important reason for this, in harmony with Wittgenstein’s vision, appears to have been its lack of appropriate tools for explicating language. The present theory of time proceeds, accordingly, from the exploration of (...) temporal expressions in language as an evolutionary fact. It derives in a hypothetical, coherent feedback process of hierarchically ordered distinctions the semantics of time from its biologically dictated perceptual and cognitive-pragmatic origins. The corresponding abductive-regulative model is anchored in the assumption of biological rhythmization as the very foundation of perception and mental/physical action. Understood to originate in space and spatial perspective, time reveals itself as an instrument for temporal perspective on motion (events and situations) in a process of analysis, i.e., discontinuation of chaos made divisible and continuous by the rhythmical screen. Whereas traditional philosophy of time paid attention almost exclusively to the temporal category of tense, the biopragmatic model sees strong evidence in the perspectival nature of time for ascribing the decisive, and probably universal, role in temporal analysis to the linguistic category of aspect. Aspect may, according to the present findings, be assumed to partake already of change-of-state and cause-effect analysis without which man’s adaptation to new situations – and precondition for survival – would be inconceivable. The proposed model of space/time cognition, inspired by Hegelian dialectics, Heidegger-Gadamer’s hermeneutic circle and Peircean logic, makes Kantian a priori superfluous and liberates time from its enigmatic appearance. For the first time in temporal studies it thus appears possible to derive hypothetically linguistic expressions of time all the way from pretemporal, homogeneous continuity effected by biological rhythmization, via pretemporal metonymic (Gestalt), chunk-wise partitioning – as a general precondition for the perception and, based on primary metaphorization, the cognition of things, space and motion – to temporal analysis/discontinuation proper, primarily by aspectual perspective, and the subsequent synthesized, heterogeneous continuity of temporally ordered events. The conception of time, so disastrous for modern temporal logic, i.e., as moving object assigned extension, divisible continuity (‛linearity’) and direction, can be shown to have emerged as a result of secondary metaphorization. (shrink)