In the framework of Husserl's phenomenology, intentionality is regarded as the main feature of every act of consciousness. Our consciousness is directed towards objects immanent in it, however in a variety of epistemological functions and operations, such as sensory perception, judgment, cognition, volition, imagination, etc. Husserl uses the technical terms noesis and noema to designate the intentional acts of consciousness and their outcome in the constitution of objects in consciousness. At the same time, the persistence of a hyletic data is (...) emphasized, which as pure sense data escapes the phenomenological reduction and remains as such a residuum in the consciousness. In my lecture I try to work out the clear implication of epistemological referentiality in the phenomenological basic notion of intentionality. Among other things, I rely on the conceptual history of intentionality, i. e. on the earlier theories of intentionality in the Middle Ages and the philosophical revival of this notion in the late 19th century by Franz Brentano. Referentiality defines itself as the referential access of consciousness to objects of sensory perception, judgment, cognition, etc., in which the objects form the final referents. In the phenomenological framework, intentionality refers to the intentional access of consciousness to objects irrespective of their consciousness-immanence or -transcendence. The analogy between intentionality and referentiality is therefore based on the act-character as well as the directionality of consciousness which suggests the characteristic attempt of consciousness to gain intentional-referential access to objects. The directionality of consciousness in every intentional act ultimately marks and confirms the referentiality i. e the referential access of consciousness to the object. Intentionality as intentional-referential access to objects becomes a problem, when the access of consciousness to the object proves to be inadequate. I try to show how this problem of referentiality inevitably arises in Husserl's phenomenology of inner time-consciousness, especially in his conception of a time-object (Zeitobjekt). The consciousness-immanence of a time-object, such as a melody, points to a problem, that the intertwining of the temporality of consciousness and that of time-object necessarily results in various aporias of time, as Paul Ricœur observes and discusses in detail in his seminal work Temps et Récit. Moreover, the residual persistence of hyletic data, that survives all phenomenological reductions, would establish an actual interface between consciousness and reality, as Jaakko Hintikka emphasizes in his essay The phenomenological dimension. The aporicity of time refers to the autonomy of time and, thereby, to the autonomy of time-object in its intentional in-existence in consciousness. The hyletic data as interface between consciousness and reality points to the necessary referential extension of consciousness to objects that are otherwise excluded in the context of phenomenology. From these and similar premises, I would like to demonstrate how the problem of referentiality in Husserl's philosophy of time inevitably presupposes a reversion of referentiality within the prevailing noesis-noema structure that underlies the consciousness-immanence of objects. (shrink)

In this note, I point out some implications of the experiential principle* for the nature of the relationship between language and the world. I argue that this principle implies the existence of a certain relationship between linguistic tokens and facts, and that this relationship undermines most critiques of the referentiality of language.

The interpretation of many texts in the everyday world is concerned with their truth value in relation to the reality around us. The recent publication experiments with computer-generated texts have shown that the distinction between true and false, or reality and fiction, is not always clear from the text itself. Essentially, in today’s media space, one may encounter texts, videos or images that deceive the reader by displaying nonsensical content or nonexistent events, while nevertheless appearing as genuine human-produced (...) messages. This article outlines certain problems with artificial intelligence (AI)-generated content, and frames the issue as a problem of recognising its proper referential reality. Examples include generative texts, deepfakes and their functioning in contemporary culture. The article makes use of the concepts of mimicry and nonsense to reveal the elements and counterparts in the communicative processes involving generated media. (shrink)

I happen to believe that though human experiences are to be characterized as pluralistic they are all rooted in the one reality. I would assume the thesis of pluralism but how could I maintain my belief in the realism? There are various discussions in favor of realism but they appear to stay within a particular paradigm so to be called “internal realism”. In this paper I would try to justify my belief in the reality by discussing a special (...) use of indexicals. I will argue for my indexical realism by advancing the thesis that indexicals can be used as an inter-agentic referential term. Three arguments for the thesis will be presented. The first argument derives from a revision of Kaplan-Kvart’s notion of exportation. Their notions of exportation of singular terms can be analyzed as intra-agentic exportation in the context of a single speaker and theirs may be revised so as to be an inter-agentic exportation in the context of two speakers who use the same indexicals. The second is an argument from the notion of causation which is specifically characterized in the context of inter-theoretic reference. I will argue that any two theories may each say “this” in order to refer what is beyond its own theory. Two theories address themselves to ‘this’ same thing though what ‘this’ represents in each theory turn out to be different objects all together. The third argument is an argument which is based on a possibility of natural reference. Reference is used to be taken mostly as a 3-place predicate: Abe refers an object oi with an expression ej. The traditional notion of reference is constructive and anthropocentric. But I would argue that natural reference is a reference that we humans come to recognize among denumerably many objects in natural states: at a moment mi in a natural state there is a referential relation among objects o1, o2, o3, . . , oj, o j+1, . . which interact to each other as agents of information processors. Natural reference is an original reference which is naturally given and to which humans are passive as we derivatively refer it by using ‘this’. (shrink)

Conservation of the Circle is the only dynamic in Nature.

This book presents a critical analysis of the semantic incommensurability thesis of Thomas Kuhn and Paul Feyerabend. In putting forward the thesis of incommensurability, Kuhn and Feyerabend drew attention to complex issues concerning the phenomenon of conceptual change in science. They raised serious problems about the semantic and logical relations between the content of theories which deploy unlike systems of concepts. Yet few of the more extreme claims associated with incommensurability stand scrutiny. The argument of this book is as follows. (...) The terms of theories with different concepts diverge semantically and the vocabularies of such theories may not be fully intertranslatable. Given the possibility of referential overlap between the terms of conceptually divergent theories, it does not follow that the content of such theories is incomparable. Nor, given the distinction between understanding a language and translation from one language into another, does it follow that the proponents of mutually untranslatable theories are unable to communicate. Neither is it the case that the shift between conceptually divergent theories involves a discontinuous transition between theories which have no common reference or that refer to distinct worlds of their own making. The semantic differences resulting from conceptual variance may be embraced within a thoroughly realist framework on which they are construed as diverse linguistic relations to a fixed and independent reality. -/- The book, which was originally published in 1994, has now been re-issued in the Routledge Revivals series. -/- . (shrink)

Culture as a dynamic system of meaningful relations can naturally accommodate a hermeneutic analysis. In this essay, the notion of Gadamer’s hermeneutics as involving interpretable meaning throughout experiential reality permits a natural concordance with an understanding of culture as meaningful. The Gadamerian idea that prejudices inform the horizons that make our experiences intelligible is applied to the view that culture is both a self-enclosed structure that is given by one’s horizon and one that continuously points past this horizon in (...) genuine dialogue. Nevertheless, in seeing culture as a coherent system that transcends itself, we are consequently faced with a dilemma regarding the evolution of one’s cultural horizons: whether past horizons can survive the creation of novel ones through dialogue. However, this may be resolved through Gadamer’s understanding of the functions of sameness and difference within horizonal evolution, and how these functions feature in the distinction between a shared ontological ground and the horizons through which the ground is interpreted. Ultimately, we showcase how it is noncontradictory to suppose that culture is both self- and other-referential. (shrink)

The following scenario seems possible: a community uses concepts that play the same role in guiding actions and shaping social life as our normative concepts, and yet refer to something else. As Eklund argues, this apparent possibility poses a problem for any normative realist who aspires to vindicate the thought that reality itself favors our ways of valuing and acting. How can realists make good on this idea, given that anything they might say in support of the privileged status (...) of our normative concepts can be mirrored by the imagined community? E.g., the realist might claim that using our concepts is what we ought to do if we are to describe normative facts correctly, but members of the other community can claim the same about their concepts, using their own concept of ought. A promising approach to this challenge is to try to rule out the possibility of alternative normative concepts, by arguing that any concepts that have the same normative role must share a reference as well. In this paper I argue that normative quasi-naturalism, a view that combines expressivism about normative discourse with a naturalist metaphysics of normativity, supports referential normativity and solves the problem of alternative normative concepts. (shrink)

Over the last thirty years, once staunchly film history scholars such as Thomas Elsaesser, Jane Gaines, Siegfried Zielinski, André Gaudreault and Benoît Turquety (to name just a few) have abandoned history for historiography and film studies for media archaeology. Considering the heightened attention given to kulturtechnik (Siegert), the database as a dominant symbolic metaphor,1 and the decentered networked tenants of the postmodern global present, cinema is taking on the characteristics of new media, existing in increasingly intertextual space. Thus, the term (...) “post-cinema” has been co-opted as a viable intermediary that accounts for new media conditions, as cinema is no longer emblematic of our cultural climate. It was once presaged in 1992 that “[t]he end of the cinema truly sounds the death knell of the ultimate metaphysical adventure of Dasein. In the twilight of post-cinema, of which we are seeing the beginning, human quasi-existence, now stripped of any metaphysical hypostasis and deprived of any theological model, will have to seek its proper generic consistency elsewhere.” Accordingly, we are no longer “moviegoing animals” who seek images of ourselves among a collective in the dark but, rather, users interfacing within a network of moving images. By locating post-cinema within the semblance of social media, we are allocated a newfound series of theoretical interventions, the most marked of which is that of media archeology vis-à-vis dialectical materialism. This is a lens through which Brian Winston has recently deftly decried Virtual Reality’s “empathy machine” utopic illusionism, bolstered by Chris Milk and a slew of neurohumanities researchers, steadily maintaining that the fundamental myth of “technologies of seeing” is in disguising “their artifice, their cultural formation and their ideological import.” However, this approach, which illuminates the bifurcation between Max Horkheimer/Theodor Adorno and Walter Benjamin, neglects what Benjamin identified as occurring to the work of art in the age of its technological reproducibility—a shift from a technology’s “cult value,” associated with the unique work, to its “exhibition value,” associated with the social act of viewing as part of a mass. Speaking to this divarication, Benjamin Barber, in Strong Democracy, foresaw new media’s two-fold potential—as they are organized and networked, new media and communications technologies possess the possibility to both energize citizen information and political participation but, simultaneously, to supplement the deterioration of public debate. As evinced by Mark Adrejevic’s concept of Infoglut, this two-pronged possibility has only been exacerbated by the interlocking relationship between the advent of a “glut” of information, post-truth politics, the demise of symbolic efficiency, and a renewed focus on the role of affect and emotion as “alternative modalities for thinking about the role of communication in a post-referential era.” Manuel Castells qualifies Barber’s pessimism, noting that the Internet can “be an appropriate platform for informed, interactive politics, stimulating political participation.. […] beyond the closed doors of political institutions,” but that the Internet, like any technology, “is shaped by its uses and users.” Thus, if there exists a positive correlation between exposure to post-cinema media artifacts and political participation, then I seek to explore the revelatory political possibilities of “exhibition value” by way of a particular “post-cinema” case study: the Marxist-Leninist Turkish hacktivist group Redhack’s YouTube-circulated documentary RED! (2013), a project that demanded—by way of the moving-image—to galvanize cyberprotest and democratize a “hacktivist commons. (shrink)

"Nietzsche - Extreme Philosophy of Language?" The coherence of the Nietzschean conception of language is discussed in the article. First, Nietzsche's critique of the referential semantics and the correspondence theory of truth implied by the so-called "tropological" linguistic theory as well as the doctrine of perspectivism is questioned. Consequently, the core of the argumentation is to reveal the naturalistic and metaphysical assumptions of Nietzsche's strict relativistic philosophy of language and interpretation. The conclusiveness of the Nietzschean deconstruction of metaphysics as (...) a pure language creation seems to be doubtful with regard to his construction of the 'will-to-power metaphysics'. Moreover, the reception of the Nietzsche’s philosophy as deconstructivistic after the II World War has to be revised while confronted with his hermeneutical philology. Finally, the status of the Nietzschean affirmation of reality as a play of interpretations in accordance with Paul de Man can be recognized as purely rhetorical. (shrink)

In Persona (1966), Ingmar Bergman reflects on thenature of the image emphasizing its enigmatic look. Thetechnical reproductions of images simultaneous lyactas windows and barriers of the world, as the world itself, from its status as documentary object that is part of the individual and collective memory of man. In the eye of the hurricane they are reality and its representation, and more specifically, a reality subjectified expressed in a poetic film that explores the image as extra linguistic sign. (...) In this way Bergman makes a work with its own existence, self-conscious and self-referential, which reproduces the dreams of his consciousness through the cinematographic screen. (shrink)

Philosophy of science sees itself in the tradition of epistemology, whose epistemological paradigm it adopts and on which it is based, namely the subject-object model of cognition in conjunction with the idea of certainty of knowledge and the claim to the 'critical legitimation' of knowledge. On closer inspection, however, its own development turns out to be a deconstruction of the basic epistemological idea, namely the idea of certainty of knowledge. Without this, however, not only the adherence to the linear subject-object (...) model of cognition, but also the claim to the 'legitimation' of cognition loses its binding force. For philosophy of science this means the opportunity to rethink its own task, i.e. to take a step back from the claim of 'critical legitimation' of scientific knowledge to its unbiased reflection, starting from the real, holistic situation of cognition. It is only in this framework that the fundamental difference between the concepts of cognition, namely the object-related concept of metaphysics (to which epistemology also refers), and the transcendental, cross-referential concept of physics becomes epistemologically comprehensible. And the question also arises as to what our notion of cogniton and our epistemological ideas are all about. It will turn out that these are essentially based on an ontological premise, which in reality is gradually being undermined by physics. In other words, these epistemological ideas themselves are an obstacle to an adequate understanding of physics. (shrink)

Abstract: For art to be art it has to present the viewer with a distinctly out-of-the-ordinary perspective on everyday reality. Art is to be clearly differentiated from all forms of decorative craft, which are essentially concerned only with aesthetic experiences. Art is essentially about finding ways, through the manipulation and orchestration of presentational media – such as painting, sculpture, literature, film, and performance – to bring to life strange and unusual perceptions. All these media are quasi-theatrical and poetic in (...) nature, in that they are essentially gestural, referential, and symbolic, and they present material in a condensed and allusive form. Andy Warhol’s work is an example of the theatrical manipulation of presentational media to create a strange and unusual universe. (shrink)

Resolution of Frege's Puzzle by denying that synonym substitution in logical truths preserves sentence sense and explaining how logical form has semantic import. Intensional context substitutions needn't preserve truth, because intercepting doesn't preserve sentence meaning. Intercepting is nonuniformly substituting a pivotal term in syntactically secured truth. Logical sentences and their synonym interceptions share factual content. Semantic content is factual content in synthetic predications, but not logical sentences and interceptions. Putnam's Postulate entails interception nonsynonymy. Syntax and vocabulary explain only the factual (...) content of synthetic predications; extrasentential reality explains their truth. Construction of logical factual content explains logical necessity. Terms retain objectual reference, but logical syntax preempts their function in explaining truth. Grasping the facts GG/gg assert entails understanding this. Understanding what GH states requires some recognition that GH must be true just because GmH, and GmH state an empirical fact. GH is standardly used to express that fact. Church's Test exposes puzzles. QMi sentences, and QTi sentences are metalogical necessities, true by syntax. Intercepting QMi creates empirical QM contingencies. Synonymy turns semantic contingencies into metalogical and lexical necessities. That transformation is syntactic, via the syntactic duality of definite descriptions. GmH is a contingent copredication, and a lexically necessary referential identity with rigidly codesignating indexicals. Metalogical sentences may be about expressional matter or what it expresses. GG has GG's semantic content, but the referent expression switches. Metalogical syntax secures truth by self-referential quotational indexing. Metalogically, referents are identified with intrasentential replica. Extrasentential identifications are metalogically irrelevant. (shrink)

O artigo apresenta uma concepção do fluxo de consciência a partir de um modelo de naturalização da consciência de base metafísica não-materialista, inspirado na filosofia de Espinosa. Procura-se responder à questão colocada por Arthur Prior, em seu artigo ?Thank Goodness That?s Over? , acerca do caráter problemático do significado de um certo tipo de proposições indexadas temporalmente no quadro de teorias que recusam a realidade do tempo. Para tanto, defende-se a hipótese de que essas proposições são irredutíveis a proposições não (...) temporalizadas, seu sentido sendo determinado pelo caráter adverbial dos indexadores temporais e pela função de expressar estados subjetivos referencialmente opacos . Essa função, por sua vez, seria determinante para a constituição do mental enquanto tal e para a realidade do domínio prático. // The article proposes a conception of the flow of consciousness based on a non-materialistic metaphysical model of naturalization of consciousness, inspired in Spinoza's philosophy. I will try to answer Arthur Prior’s question (Thank Goodness That's Over, 1959) concerning the problematic character of the meaning of a certain type of propositions containing temporal indexes for the theories that refuse the reality of time. My hypothesis is that those propositions cannot be reduced to tenseless ones since their meaning is determined by the adverbial character of the temporal indexes and since they express subjective referentially opaque states (that are taken to be close to the Spinozistic concept of affection). I will also show that their function is crucial for the constitution of the mental and for the reality of the practical domain. (shrink)

I am arguing that it is only by concentrating on the role of models in theory construction, interpretation and change, that one can study the progress of science sensibly. I define the level at which these models operate as a level above the purely empirical (consisting of various systems in reality) but also indeed below that of the fundamental formal theories (expressed linguistically). The essentially multi-interpretability of the theory at the general, abstract linguistic level, implies that it can potentially (...) make claims about systems in reality, other than the particular one which originally induced it. Any so-called correspondence relation between (systems in) reality and the entities and relations in some scientific theory, thus consists of two jumps or interpretations: from the theory (linguistic level) to some model of it (constructural level); and from there to some system in reality. Clearly then the level of fundamental theories cannot be ignored la Nancy Cartwright - in studying the relations between a theory and reality, because the particular features of the theory (the various systems in reality onto which the theory can be mapped) cannot be studied without the underlying knowledge that these systems have one common feature, namely that each of them is the range (or other pole) of a mapping of a context-specific model of the theory - which in itself, is a mapping, or more specifically, an interpretation of the theory. I am also claiming that the nature of these levels and the relations between them necessitate an epistemological rather than an ontological notion of truth criteria, and a referential rather than a representational link between science and reality. (shrink)

In order to re-contextualize the otherwise ontologically privileged meaning of metaphysical debates into a more insubstantial form, metaphysical deflationism runs the risk of having to adopt potentially unwanted anti-realist tendencies. This tension between deflationism and anti-realism can be expressed as follows: in order to claim truthfully that something exists, how can deflationism avoid the anti-realist feature of construing such claims singularly in an analytical fashion? One may choose to adopt a Yablovian fallibilism about existential claims, but other approaches can be (...) appealed to as well. Amie Thomasson's Easy Ontology is one such approach, whereby the interaction of empirical as well as analytic features within the construction of its ontological theory affords a role for analytical rules without forsaking a link with empirical reality. The development of these analytical and empirical features has resulted in significant critiques regarding, one, potential reference failure of easy-ontological claims, and two, a circularity in how easy ontology explains the relation between its analytical rules and existential claims. This essay offers a response by showcasing how an easy ontological deflationism can reject these criticisms without succumbing to, one, the anti-realism of pure analyticism, and two, a further critique of wholesale referential indeterminacy in its referring terms. (shrink)

A work on the philosophy of mathematics (2017) -/- ‘Number’, such a simple idea, and yet it fascinated and absorbed the greatest proportion of human geniuses over centuries, not to mention the likes of Pythagoras, Euclid, Newton, Leibniz, Descartes and countless maths giants like Euler, Gauss and Hilbert, etc.. Einstein thought of pure maths as the poetry of logical ideas, the exactitude of which, although independent of experience, strangely seems to benefit the study of the objects of reality. And, (...) interestingly as well as surprisingly we are nowhere near any clear understandings of numbers despite discoveries of many productive usages of numbers. This is - rightly or wrongly - a humble attempt to approach the subject from an angle hitherto unthought-of. (shrink)

NOTE TO THE READER - December, 2021 ●●●●● -/- After a long period of time devoted to research in other areas, the author returned to the subject of this paper in a book-length study, CRITIQUE OF IMPURE REASON: Horizons of Possibility and Meaning. In this book (Chapter 11, “The Metalogic of Meaning”), the position developed in the 1982 paper, "Referential Consistency as a Criterion of Meaning", has been substantively revised and several important corrections made. It is recommended that readers (...) read the revised and corrected version that appears in the book, CRITIQUE OF IMPURE REASON. ●●●●● -/- The book is available in a printed edition, ISBN 978-0-578-88646-6, from online booksellers such as Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and through independent bookstores. The book is also available as a freely downloadable _corrected second edition_ eBook, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.5458352, through PhilSci, PhilPapers, HAL, and other online archives. ●●●●● -/- In addition to the above-mentioned book, readers may find "A Primer on Bartlett's CRITIQUE OF IMPURE REASON" to be useful as a guide to the nearly 900-page CRITIQUE. The primer is available as a free download through PhilPapers. ●●●●● -/- "Referential Consistency as a Criterion of Meaning" describes a logically compelling criterion of meaning — that is, a necessary condition of meaning, one which is non-arbitrary and compelling. One cannot _not_ accept the proposed criterion without self-referential inconsistency. This “metalogical” variety of self-referential inconsistency is new, opening a third category beyond semantical and pragmatical forms of self-referential inconsistency. ●●●●● -/- It is argued that such a criterion of meaning can serve as an instrument of internal criticism for any theoretical framework that permits reference to a class of objects. The paper combines the concern of the logical empiricists to formulate a rigorous meaning criterion, with the analytical interest in identifying and eliminating self-defeating statements through an analysis of the referential structure of theories. ●●●●● -/- The paper is followed by a list of other publications by the author that further develop and extend the ideas presented here. (shrink)

We study the structure of families of theories in the language of arithmetic extended to allow these families to refer to one another and to themselves. If a theory contains schemata expressing its own truth and expressing a specific Turing index for itself, and contains some other mild axioms, then that theory is untrue. We exhibit some families of true self-referential theories that barely avoid this forbidden pattern.

attributive/referential. Pragmatic intrusion.

This thesis focuses on expressively rich languages that can formalise talk about probability. These languages have sentences that say something about probabilities of probabilities, but also sentences that say something about the probability of themselves. For example: (π): “The probability of the sentence labelled π is not greater than 1/2.” Such sentences lead to philosophical and technical challenges; but can be useful. For example they bear a close connection to situations where ones confidence in something can affect whether it is (...) the case or not. The motivating interpretation of probability as an agent's degrees of belief will be focused on throughout the thesis. -/- This thesis aims to answer two questions relevant to such frameworks, which correspond to the two parts of the thesis: “How can one develop a formal semantics for this framework?” and “What rational constraints are there on an agent once such expressive frameworks are considered?”. (shrink)

Buchanan (2014) argues for a Gricean solution to well-known counterexamples to direct reference theories of content. Peet (2016) develops a way to change the counterexample so that it seems to speak against Buchanan’s own proposal. I argue that both theorists fail to notice a significant distinction between the kinds of cases at issue. Those appearing to count against direct reference theory must be described such that speakers have false beliefs about the identity of the object to which they intend to (...) refer, beliefs that appear relevant to the determination of what constitutes communicative success. This suggests, further, that cases of this sort do not provide a basis for robust generalizations about singular reference. (shrink)

This article provides a comprehensive conceptual analysis of information. It begins with a folk notion that information is a tripartite phenomenon: information is something carried by signals about something for some use. This suggests that information has three main aspects: structural, referential, and normative. I analyze the individually necessary and jointly sufficient conditions for defining these aspects of information and consider formal theories relating to each aspect as well. The analysis reveals that structural, referential, and normative aspects of (...) information are hierarchically nested and that the normative depends on the referential, which in turn depends on the structural. (shrink)

Solving the meta-problem of consciousness requires, among other things, explaining why we are so reluctant to endorse various forms of illusionism about the phenomenal. I will try to tackle this task in two steps. The first consists in clarifying how the concept of consciousness precludes the possibility of any distinction between 'appearance' and 'reality'. The second consists in spelling out our reasons for recognizing the existence of something that satisfies that concept.

Episodic memory has a distinctive phenomenology. One way to capture what is distinctive about it is by using the notion of mental time travel: When we remember some fact episodically, we mentally travel to the moment at which we experienced it in the past. This way of distinguishing episodic memory from semantic memory calls for an explanation of what the experience of mental time travel is. In this paper, I suggest that a certain view about the content of memories can (...) shed some light on the experience of mental time travel. This is the view that, when a subject remembers some fact episodically, their memory represents itself as coming from a perception of that fact. I propose that the experience of mental time travel in memory is the experience of representing one of the elements in this complex content, namely, the past perceptual experience of the remembered fact. In defence of this proposal, I offer two considerations. Firstly, the proposal is consistent with the idea that memories enjoy a temporal phenomenology (specifically, a feeling of pastness). Secondly, the proposal is consistent with the possibility that some of our other cognitive capacities might yield an experience of mental time travel which can be oriented towards the future. I argue that the received conception of mental time travel is in tension with those two ideas. (shrink)

Typical discussions of virtual reality (VR) fixate on technology for providing sensory stimulation of a certain kind. They thus fail to understand reality as the place wherein we live and work, misunderstanding it instead as merely a sort of presentation. The first half of the paper examines popular conceptions of VR. The most common conception is a shallow one according to which VR is a matter of simulating appearances. Yet there is, even in popular depictions, a second, more (...) subtle conception according to which VR is a matter of facilitating new kinds of interaction. The latter half of the paper turns to questions about the contemporary technology of Internet chatrooms. The fact that chatrooms can be used in certain ways suggests something about the prospects for VR. The penultimate section asks whether chatrooms may legitimately be thought of as places. (In a sense, they may.) The final section asks whether cybersex may legitimately be thought of as sex. (Again, yes.) Chatroom technology thus provides an argument for the second conception of VR over its much ballyhooed rival. (shrink)

There are two sorts of singular terms for which we have difficulty applying Donnellan’s referential/attributive distinction: complex definite descriptions, and proper names. With respect to the uses of such terms in certain contexts we seem to have conflicting intuitions as to whether they should be classified as referential or attributive. The problem concerning how to apply Donnellan’s distinction to the uses of certain complex definite descriptions has never been debated in the literature. On the other hand there have (...) been attempts to extend Donnellan’s distinction to the uses of proper names, the most popular one being due to Kripke. However the argument Kripke gives to this end in his ‘Speaker’s Reference and Semantic Reference’ seems to be inconsistent with the position he takes in Naming and Necessity. I suggest that the reason we seem to have conflicting intuitions with respect to the uses of such terms, is because there is not one but two separate distinctions inherent in Donnellan’s examples; a pragmatic distinction based on the speaker’s intentions in using a term , and an epistemic one based on the notion of having an object in mind. In the light of this, I argue that the issue of whether there are attributive uses of proper names, in the latter sense, relates to the epistemic problem of whether a speaker can have de re attitudes toward an object that he does not have in mind. On this epistemic issue Kripke and Donnellan are on opposite sides as revealed by their debate over the issue of whether there are contingent a priori propositions. (shrink)

This article develops a logic with two fundamental components: objects and labels. We compare the properties of the two universes that can be constructed from these building blocks and show how they naturally resolve a class of linguistic paradoxes. We conclude with a application to modal logics involving context fields.

Augmented reality (AR) technologies function to ‘augment’ normal perception by superimposing virtual objects onto an agent’s visual field. The philosophy of augmented reality is a small but growing subfield within the philosophy of technology. Existing work in this subfield includes research on the phenomenology of augmented experiences, the metaphysics of virtual objects, and different ethical issues associated with AR systems, including (but not limited to) issues of privacy, property rights, ownership, trust, and informed consent. This paper addresses some (...) epistemological issues posed by AR systems. I focus on a near-future version of AR technology called the Real-World Web, which promises to radically transform the nature of our relationship to digital information by mixing the virtual with the physical. I argue that the Real-World Web (RWW) threatens to exacerbate three existing epistemic problems in the digital age: the problem of digital distraction, the problem of digital deception, and the problem of digital divergence. The RWW is poised to present new versions of these problems in the form of what I call the augmented attention economy, augmented skepticism, and the problem of other augmented minds. The paper draws on a range of empirical research on AR and offers a phenomenological analysis of virtual objects as perceptual affordances to help ground and guide the speculative nature of the discussion. It also considers a few policy-based and designed-based proposals to mitigate the epistemic threats posed by AR technology. (shrink)

Peter Lamarque, in chapter 4 of his 2010 book Work and Object, argues that certain artworks, like musical scores and literary texts, are such that there can be no forgeries of them that purport to be of an actually existing work—what Lamarque calls “referential forgeries”. Lamarque motivates this claim via appeal to another distinction, first made by Goodman, between “allographic” and “autographic” artworks. This article will evaluate Lamarque’s argument that allographic literary works are unable to be referentially forged and (...) will find them wanting. In so doing, the distinction between allographic and autographic artworks (and therefore artforms) will be called into question. In section I, I characterize referential forgery and Lamarque’s definition of allographic and autographic artforms. Section II critically examines Lamarque’s argument against the possibility of referential forgery in allographic artforms. Section III offers a case where it appears that a putatively allographic text’s type membership is sensitive to facts about its causal-intentional provenance. This case serves as pretext for Section IV’s identification of this causal-intentional relation with the sanctioning relation as formulated by Sherri Irvin. On the basis of considerations treated in sections I through IV, section V questions the tenability of the allographic/autographic distinction. -/- . (shrink)

This paper contributes to the debate regarding the semantic type of singular referential names. According to one view, known as referentialism, names rigidly designate individuals (Kripke 1972, Abbott 2002, Leckie 2013, Jeshion 2015, Schoubye 2017). According to another view, known as predicativism, names designate properties of individuals (Burge 1973, Geurts 1997, Bach 2002, Elbourne 2005, Matushansky 2008, Fara 2015). Most predicativist accounts claim that bare names in English occur with a phonologically null determiner, a proposal that is based on (...) languages like Greek where names require a determiner in argument position. Novel data from both English and Greek show that names can be nonrigid designators under modal operators ("Aristotle may teach Socrates") and bound variables under quantifiers ("in every set of twins, Helen is a musician"), challenging referentialism. As for rigidity, one possible source of this phenomenon is the proprial article, a name-specific determiner found in Catalan and other languages that may be null in English and homophonous with the definite article in Greek (Ghomeshi and Massam 2009, Muñoz 2019, Izumi and Erickson 2021). While much further research is needed, the data suggest that the proper analysis of names is grounded in predicativism rather than referentialism. (shrink)

Abstract: This study aimed to identify the reality of using a balanced scorecard in business incubators in Gaza Strip, and the study relied on the descriptive analytical approach, and the study population consisted of all employees working in business incubators in Gaza Strip in addition to experts and consultants in incubators, where their total number reached (62) Individually, the researchers used the questionnaire as a main tool for collecting data through the comprehensive survey method, where (55) questionnaires were retrieved (...) with a recovery rate (88.7%.). The results of the study showed that there is a high approval of all dimensions of the balanced scorecard, as it obtained a relative weight (81.44%), and the order of its dimensions came as follows, first came the incubation dimension with a relative weight (84.89%), followed by the learning dimension, which got a relative weight (82.50%), and in the third place came the entrepreneur dimension with a relative weight (80.66%), and in the last place was the societal development dimension with a relative weight (78.18%). The study came out with several recommendations, the most important of which is that business incubators seek to adopt the application of the balanced scorecard as a method for managing it and a tool for measuring and evaluating its performance, and the need to periodically evaluate its performance, and the need to hold training courses for workers in incubators to introduce them to the balanced scorecard and how to apply it. (shrink)

The success of a few theories in statistical thermodynamics can be correlated with their selectivity to reality. These are the theories of Boltzmann, Gibbs, and Einstein. The starting point is Carnot’s theory, which defines implicitly the general selection of reality relevant to thermodynamics. The three other theories share this selection, but specify it further in detail. Each of them separates a few main aspects within the scope of the implicit thermodynamic reality. Their success grounds on that selection. (...) Those aspects can be represented by corresponding oppositions. These are: macroscopic – microscopic; elements – states; relational – non-relational; and observable – theoretical. They can be interpreted as axes of independent qualities constituting a common qualitative reference frame shared by those theories. Each of them can be situated in this reference frame occupying a different place. This reference frame can be interpreted as an additional selection of reality within Carnot’s initial selection describable as macroscopic and both observable and theoretical. The deduced reference frame refers implicitly to many scientific theories independent of their subject therefore defining a general and common space or subspace for scientific theories (not for all). The immediate conclusion is: The examples of a few statistical thermodynamic theories demonstrate that the concept of “reality” is changed or generalized, or even exemplified (i.e. “de-generalized”) from a theory to another. Still a few more general suggestions referring the scientific realism debate can be added: One can admit that reality in scientific theories is some partially shared common qualitative space or subspace describable by relevant oppositions and rather independent of their subject quite different in general. Many or maybe all theories can be situated in that space of reality, which should develop adding new dimensions in it for still newer and newer theories. Its division of independent subspaces can represent the many-realities conception. The subject of a theory determines some relevant subspace of reality. This represents a selection within reality, relevant to the theory in question. The success of that theory correlates essentially with the selection within reality, relevant to its subject. (shrink)

Rationality requires us to respond to apparent normative reasons. Given the independence of appearance and reality, why think that apparent normative reasons necessarily provide real normative reasons? And if they do not, why think that mistakes of rationality are necessarily real mistakes? This paper gives a novel answer to these questions. I argue first that in the moral domain, there are objective duties of respect that we violate whenever we do what appears to violate our first-order duties. The existence (...) of these duties of respect, I argue, ensures that apparent moral reasons are exceptions to the independence of appearance and reality. I then extend these arguments to the domain of overall reason. Just as there are objective duties of respect for moral reasons that explain moral blameworthiness, so there are objective duties of respect for reasons that explain blameworthiness in the court of overall reason. The existence of these duties ensures that apparent reasons are exceptions to the independence of appearance and reality. (shrink)

The history of humankind is full of examples that indicate a constant desire to make human beings more moral. Nowadays, technological breakthroughs might have a significant impact on our moral character and abilities. This is the case of Virtual Reality (VR) technologies. The aim of this paper is to consider the ethical aspects of the use of VR in enhancing empathy. First, we will offer an introduction to VR, explaining its fundamental features, devices and concepts. Then, we will approach (...) the characterization of VR as an “empathy machine,” showing why this medium has aroused so much interest and why, nevertheless, we do not believe it is the ideal way to enhance empathy. As an alternative, we will consider fostering empathy-related abilities through virtual embodiment in avatars. In the conclusion, however, we will, we will examine some of the serious concerns related to the ethical relevance of empathy and will defend the philosophical case for a reason-guided empathy, also suggesting specific guidelines for possible future developments of empathy enhancement projects through VR embodied experiences. (shrink)

This book examines the epistemic function of perception and the relation between language and conceptual thought, and provides new ways of conceptualizing the Buddhist defense of the reflexivity thesis of consciousness: namely, that each cognitive event is to be understood as involving a pre-reflective implicit awareness of its own occurrence.

It is commonly assumed that a virtual life would be less meaningful (perhaps even meaningless). As virtual reality technologies develop and become more integrated into our everyday lives, this poses a challenge for those that care about meaning in life. In this chapter, it is argued that the common assumption about meaninglessness and virtuality is mistaken. After clarifying the distinction between two different visions of virtual reality, four arguments are presented for thinking that meaning is possible in virtual (...) reality. Following this, four objections are discussed and rebutted. The chapter concludes that we can be cautiously optimistic about the possibility of meaning in virtual worlds. (shrink)

There is a transpersonal reality behind the doors of perception. This reality manifests itself in the observable world in such diverse areas as psychology, physics, and biology. This paper explores the evidence in these diverse disciplines, discussing the need for a paradigm change which recognizes the importance of considering non-material influences which the transpersonal realm exerts on the physical world, and concludes with examples of individuals who have experienced this super-ordinate realm, noting the similarities in their descriptions of (...) those experiences. (shrink)

Mallon, Machery, Nichols and Stich (Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 79: 332–356, 2009) argue that the use of intuitions in the philosophy of reference is problematic as recent studies show intuitions about reference vary both within and between cultures. I use some ideas from the recent literature on disagreement and truth relativism to shed light on the debate concerning the appropriate reaction to these studies. Mallon et al. argue that variation is problematic because if one tries to use intuitions which vary (...) to find the correct theory of reference one will end up endorsing an absurd position: referential pluralism. I argue that there is hope for intuition-based philosophy of reference. One can avoid endorsing referential pluralism (as Mallon et al. understand it). Furthermore, referential pluralism may not be so absurd after all. (shrink)

I defend the extremist position that the fundamental ontology of the world consists of a vector in Hilbert space evolving according to the Schrödinger equation. The laws of physics are determined solely by the energy eigenspectrum of the Hamiltonian. The structure of our observed world, including space and fields living within it, should arise as a higher-level emergent description. I sketch how this might come about, although much work remains to be done.

In Morality & Mathematics, Justin Clarke-Doane argues that it is hard to imagine being "a realist about, for example, the standard model of particle physics, but not about mathematics." I try to explain how that seems very possible from the perspective of a physicist. What is real is the physical world; mathematics starts from descriptions of the natural world and extrapolates from there, but that extrapolation does not imply any independent reality. -/- Submitted to an Analysis Reviews symposium on (...) Clarke-Doane's Morality & Mathematics. (shrink)

This chapter investigates whether signs and their action, semiosis, are real. It critically surveys three arguments. The first argument consists in holding that semiosis must be real, because denying the reality of signs is self-defeating. This self-confirming status seems to imply that semiosis is the very means by which we partition the mind-independent and mind-dependent. One would then need to clarify this ontological neutrality or priority. The second argument consists in identifying an instance of sign-action that is mind-independent. Instead (...) of searching for abiotic semiosis, a more parsimonious approach is to ask whether we want reality to be what exists apart from minds in general or apart from human minds specifically. If we adopt the latter view, and if the action of signs can be shown to take place in the non-human realm, this would show that semiosis does not depend on us. One would then need to explain how humans can interpret all this while putting themselves out of the equation, so to speak. The third argument consists in saying that, despite its initial plausibility, the mind-dependent and mind-independent division is not clear-cut. This is because some conventional patterns can be informationally compressed in ways that are practically indistinguishable from genuinely mind-independent patterns. One would then need to clarify how the mind-dependent/mind-independent divide can admit of such hybrid cases. (shrink)

It is argued that none of the speaker's referential intentions accompanying his utterance of a demonstrative are semantically significant but rather the associated demonstration (or some other source of salience). It is constitutive of the speaker's having the specifically referential intention - held by Kent Bach to be semantically significant - that the speaker is taking, and relying upon, his accompanying gesture (or some other source of salience) as semantically significant, making it the case that this intention is (...) not even partly semantically significant. The same is then shown to hold for the speaker's remaining referential intentions: his intention aimed at a perceived object, believed by David Kaplan to be semantically significant, as well as the intention to refer to the object that he has in mind. (shrink)

The research aims to identify the reality of modern methods applied in the process of performance assessments of employees in the municipalities of Gaza-strip, Complete Census method of community study was used, (571) questionnaires were distributed to all members of the community study, (524) questionnaires were recovery with rate of (91.76%). The most important findings of the study: There were statistically significant relationship differences between the applications of modern methods in the performance assessments of employees in the municipalities of (...) Gaza-strip. There was statistically significant relationship between the evaluation criteria that fit the required performance and the application of standards evaluations on performance of employees in the municipalities of Gaza-strip. There was statistically significant relationship between the use of methods, models for the evaluation of appropriate functions and the application of the performance assessments of employees in the municipalities of Gaza-strip. There was statistically significant relationship between the feedback and the application of performance assessments of employees in the municipalities of Gaza-strip. There was statistically significant relationship between the efficient, professional assessors and the application of the performance assessments of employees in the municipalities of Gaza-strip. There was statistically significant relationship between the extent of awareness of subordinates, participation in the evaluation of their performance and the application of the performance assessments of employees in the municipalities of Gaza-strip. The research also concluded a series of recommendations, including: that the design of evaluation models must be done with the participation of the employees and inform them of it, and that a date must be set to provide feedback and discuss the results with them, that they should be allowed grievance in front of an ad hoc committee in accordance with the known system. Direct manager must inform employees of their performance assessment date, discuss the results of the evaluation with them, and others should be involved with the direct manager of employees in their performance evaluation. The application of modern methods of performance evaluation through the good and purposeful planning should be used, analyzing and employing the results in administrative decisions regarding the employees, and the application of modern methods must be used in an effective and efficient performance evaluation. (shrink)

This book offers a philosophical account of memory. Memory is remarkably interesting from a philosophical point of view. Our memories interact with mental states of other types in a characteristic way. They also have some associated feelings that other mental states lack. Our memories are special in terms of their representational capacity too, since we can have memories of objective events, and we can have memories of our own past experiences. Finally, our memories are epistemically special, in that beliefs formed (...) on the basis of our memories are protected from certain errors of misidentification and justified in a way which does not rely on any cognitive capacity other than memory. The aim of the book is to explain these features of memory. It proposes that memories have a particular functional role which involves past perceptual experiences and beliefs about the past and suggests that memories have a particular content as well; they represent themselves as having a certain causal origin. The book then accounts for the feelings associated with our memories as the experience of some of the things that our memories represent; things such as our own past experiences, or the fact the memories originate in those experiences. It also accounts for the special justification for belief afforded by our memories in terms of the content that memories have. The resulting picture is a unified account of several philosophically interesting aspects of memory. (shrink)

This book proposes a novel theory of truth and falsity. It argues that truth is a form of reference and falsity is a form of reference failure. -/- Most of the philosophical literature on truth concentrates on certain ontological and epistemic problems. This book focuses instead on language. By utilizing the Fregean idea that sentences are singular referring expressions, the author develops novel connections between the philosophical study of truth and falsity and the huge literature in in the philosophy of (...) language on the notion of reference. The first part of the book constructs the author’s theory and argues for it in length. Part II addresses the ways in which the theory relates to, and is different from, some of the basic theories of truth. Part III takes up how to account for the truth of sentences with logical operators and quantifiers. Finally, Part IV discusses the applications and implications of the theory for longstanding problems in philosophy of language, metaphysics, and epistemology. -/- A Referential Theory of Truth and Falsity will appeal to researchers and advanced students working in philosophy of language, epistemology, metaphysics, and linguistics. -/- . (shrink)

ABSTRACT This paper addresses a central positive claim in Matti Eklund’s Choosing Normative Concepts: that a certain kind of metaphysically ambitious realist about normativity – the ardent realist – is committed to the metasemantic idea that the distinctive inferential role of normative concepts suffices to fix the extension of those concepts. I argue first that commitment to this sort of inferential role metasemantic view does nothing to secure ardent realism. I then show how the ardent realist can address Eklund’s leading (...) challenge without appeal to distinctively metasemantic commitments. (shrink)