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... Finally, in the third part of the paper, our thesis regarding reference is discussed in the context of Putnam's (1975Putnam's ( , 19831991) and Kripke's (1980) "new" theory of reference. We claim that the notion of an object-file containing predominantly spatio-temporal information provides the causal connection with the world that Putnam and Kripke sought to establish. ...
... To escape the lurking infinite regress, there must be some words whose reference does not depend on that of other words, that is words that are founded directly in the world. Kripke (1972) and Putnam (1975;1983;1991) have argued that the standard conception of reference fails for certain kinds of words, namely demonstratives, proper names and natural kind terms. It is interesting to see whether our notion of reference is compatible with Putnam's (1975;1983) direct-reference theory ("direct" in that it avoids the mediation of conceptual content in establishing reference). ...
... Kripke (1972) and Putnam (1975;1983;1991) have argued that the standard conception of reference fails for certain kinds of words, namely demonstratives, proper names and natural kind terms. It is interesting to see whether our notion of reference is compatible with Putnam's (1975;1983) direct-reference theory ("direct" in that it avoids the mediation of conceptual content in establishing reference). According to this theory, descriptions ascribing properties would identify the wrong referents of the terms. ...
We address in this paper the issue of grounding experiential concepts. Since perceptual demonstratives provide the most basic form of reference of such concepts, we examine ways of fixing the referents of such demonstratives. To avoid encodingism, that is, relating representations to representations, the process of reference fixing must be bottom-up and non-conceptual, so that it can break the circle of conceptual content and touch the world. For that, one needs the appropriate causal relation between representations and the world. We claim that this relation is provided for by spatial and object-centered attention that lead to the formation of object-files through the function of deictic codes. The whole process takes place at a pre-conceptual level, meeting the requirement for a solution to the grounding problem. Finally we claim that our account captures fundamental insights in Putnam's and Kripke's work on "new" reference.
... In the second section, we contrast our account with some other theories of reference of perceptual demonstratives, especially with Campbell's (2002) and Haugeland's (1998) theory. Then we relate our theory to Putnam's (1981;1983) and Kripke's (1980) "causal theory of reference". Our claim is that the causal connection between the nonconceptual content of the object-files and the world provides causal chains that solve the grounding problem and overcome some of the problems associated with causal accounts of reference. ...
... We stress that reference fixing does not mean identifying the referent as being such and such, but something weaker, namely individuating the object to which the demonstrative refers. Kripke (1980) and Putnam (1983;1991) have already shown that the standard conception of reference fixing through the sole intermediary of conceptual content is bound to fail. At least for certain kinds of terms, their reference cannot be determined by their meaning but by what the world is really like. ...
The paper argues that the reference of perceptual demonstratives is fixed in a causal nondescriptive way through the nonconceptual content of perception. That content consists first in spatiotemporal information establishing the existence of a separate persistent object retrieved from a visual scene by the perceptual object segmentation processes that open an object-file for that object. Nonconceptual content also consists in other transducable information, that is, information that is retrieved directly in a bottom-up way from the scene (motion, shape, etc). The nonconceptual content of the mental states induced when one uses a perceptual demonstrative constitutes the mode of presentation of the perceptual demonstrative that individuates but does not identify the object of perceptual awareness and allows reference to it. On that account, perceptual demonstratives put us in a de re relationship with objects in the world through the non-conceptual information retrieved directly from the objects in the environment.
... 3), the tension between the two were appreciably lessened. Moreover, the theory of reference concerning natural kind terms, which at around the same time Putnam proposed (Putnam, 1970(Putnam, , 1975(Putnam, , 1983, was the one that, unintentionally, reconfirms the consistency of Locke's theory of reference consisting of the two seemingly conflicting aspects (Tomida, 2001b). ...
In the Essay Locke argues abstract ideas within the framework of the descriptivist theory of reference. For him, abstract ideas are, in many cases, conceptual ideas that play the role of “descriptions” or “descriptive contents,” determining general terms’ referents. In contrast, in the introduction of the Principles , Berkeley denies Lockean abstract ideas adamantly from an imagistic point of view, and he offers his own theory of reference seemingly consisting of referring expressions and their referents alone. However, interestingly, he mentions a general term’s “definition” and suggests that it determines the scope of the term’s referents. For example, he takes up the definition of a triangle as “a plain Surface comprehended by three right Lines” and suggests that just as Locke’s general idea of a triangle does, the definition determines the referents of the general term “triangle.” His definition reminds us of the fact that as Descartes grasps the content of the general idea of a triangle as “a figure enclosed by three lines,” so Locke grasps the abstract idea of a triangle as “a Figure including a Space between three Lines,” and so on. That is, since Berkeley is an imagist, he does not acknowledge Locke’s conceptual abstract ideas as “ideas,” but although he verbally denies “abstract ideas,” his theory of reference also actually has the same descriptivist framework consisting of referring expressions, their descriptive contents, and their referents. Thus, we understand the real reason why Berkeley’s criticism of Locke seems beside the point.
... First, while all that we think and feel evidently requires brain activity, the task of interpreting and evaluating our human thoughts and feelings takes us into a space of meanings, which necessarily lies outside the domain of brain science. "Meanings", as the American philosopher Hilary Putnam once trenchantly observed, "aren't in the head" Putnam (1985). However closely you monitor or analyse the activities of the brain, you will never uncover the significance of the religious (or indeed musical or literary or artistic or scientific) thoughts and feelings that are being entertained. ...
... C'est ainsi que Putnam y a vu la confirmation de son point de vue philosophique qu'il qualifie de "réalisme interne" et que Quine y voit pour sa part la confirmation de sa thèse concernant la relativité de l'ontologie. (Putnam, 1979a;Quine, 1969b, 58-62) Lorsqu'on le considère comme un théorème s'appliquant d'abord et avant tout à un calcul substitutionnel d'ordre supérieur, sa portée ontologique est pour ainsi dire neutralisée. Le théorème ne révèle rien de plus qu'une propriété des systèmes formels. ...
Cet ouvrage de Pascal Engel doit être fortement recommandé pour plusieurs raisons. On est d'abord frappé par l'ampleur du travail accompli et l'étendue du domaine couvert. La documentation est fouillée, l'exposé est clair et un équilibre est toujours maintenu entre les questions générales et les questions de détail. Engel ne perd jamais de vue la perspective d'ensemble qu'il s'est donnée et qui concerne la nature de la logique, y compris lorsqu'il s'emploie à faire certaines nuances ou à proposer une distinction subtile. Il aurait été facile en pareille matière de proposer un mauvais choix de thèmes. Là encore, Engel s'est bien acquitté de sa tâche. On a affaire à un ouvrage dans lequel l'auteur va toujours droit à l'essentiel. Plusieurs sujets sont à peine effleurés, mais cette décision est très souvent heureuse puisqu'elle permet à l'auteur d'établir des liens entre des problématiques qui, de prime abord, semblent très éloignées les unes des autres. L'auteur fait montre d'un étonnant esprit de synthèse et plusieurs thèmes font, à ma connaissance, une première apparition dans la littérature philosophique francophone. Il s'agit donc d'une contribution à la philosophie de la logique qui mérite d'être signalée. On regrettera peut-être la présence d'un assez grand nombre d'erreurs typographiques (j'en ai rapidement relevées plus de cent cinquante). Dans la plupart des cas, il ne s'agit que de coquilles mais, dans d'autres cas, elles risquent de nuire à la compréhension du texte surtout lorsqu'elles interviennent dans des formules ou des définitions.
... as a form of knowledge or cognizance, is necessarily used by people; chess, being an arbitrarily created system, is not necessarily engaged in. Chess, in other words, is an 'artifactual' term whose nature is completely accessible to man because man designed it; it is quite possible to determine the set of necessary and sufficient conditions for belonging to the extension of such an entity (see Putnam 1983). Language, on the other hand, viewed as l-language, is a natural kind and as such, an object whose composition and internal rules are not known without investigation. ...
This paper represents the author's attempt to question the notions of rule and strategy as discussed in a recent paper by Douglas Robinson (1986). The author claims that the three-tiered language structure (rules, tactics and strategy) proposed by Robinson is not sufficiently precise due to its overdosed eclecticism. Robinson found analogies between the structures of chess and language, hoping to gain support for his theses. The author rejects the chess-language analogy by proving that language does not have suitable counterparts in the game of chess. In the author's opinion, strategy in language must always be presented as a sub-model, and as such, differs from strategy in chess, which can be an algorithmically-represented part of a game-theoretical model. According to the author, language is, above all, a natural kind and a contingent object, whereas chess is a derived notion, an 'artifactual' term easily accessible for investigation.
The multi-purpose of publicizing a scientific consensus includes a communicative strategy by which scientific institutions accommodate the weighty social and economic demands to demonstrate they are collaborating and cooperating with non-scientific sectors of society, relying on a wide range of spokespeople and representatives to carry out the delivery of their consensus in formal, institutionally arranged, professional and impersonal public settings. I investigate the conditions and presuppositions that make it possible for a research consortium to contribute indirectly to public discourse beyond the presentation of empirical data and theoretical speculations routinely associated with knowledge-producing collectives. The baptismal action of researchers in selecting a designative name to announce a new discovery of virus species and species variants does not follow the rigorous regulations that standardize all names of taxonomic categories in other biological sciences as well as higher order taxa in virology. It is argued here that the lack of clarity in the denotation of the term ‘Ebola’ (in epidemiological reports from West Africa throughout 2014–2016) serves the purpose of shifting a receptor’s understanding of a statement from its explicit assertive point to an implicit declarative, commissive, directive or expressive, covertly delivered point. Specialists of nomenclature concerned with quality assurance regard this lapse in standardization as a consequence of human fallibility demanding urgent intervention. Here it is proposed instead that the occlusive effect of a technical descriptive name may serve an important communicative function.
An analysis of the role of language in basic and applied science from the semantics of science and the theory of reference requires several steps. First, to specify the field of analysis in the light of several factors: (a) the semantic problems of science; (b) the reference in its triple dimension of relation between language and reality, of referent and of transmission in science; and (c) the link between meaning and reference in science. Second, to consider the central approach to the semantics of science, which forks into two main directions: (i) the semantic line and (ii) the pragmatic path. De facto, they lead to different interpretations of the role of language in basic science and in applied science. The semantic line focuses on the content expressed through terms, statements and theories, which has been influential in important philosophical trends and still is prominent in some versions of scientific realism. Meanwhile, the pragmatic path emphasizes the meaning as use, which has influenced philosophers of science of diverse tendencies, such as S. Toulmin, Th. Kuhn (with projection in science, technology and society studies), American pragmatists and supporters of the methodological pluralism. Third, to make explicit the leading conceptions regarding the theory of reference, both for the formal sciences and for the empirical sciences. There are a number of options, four of which are analyzed here. (I) The view associated with the semantic role (the reference as a relation between the term and the object designated) and the semantic value (the reference as a reality designated by the term used), which connects semantic, epistemological and ontological realms in basic science and in applied science. (II) The causal theory of reference, which has shifted towards internal realism. (III) Anti-realistic semantics, where truth is replaced by proof (or “justified assertion”) and the reference is the use made by someone of a term in a context. (IV) Kuhn’s approach in his linguistic period, where he rethinks the scientific revolutions taking into account the causal theory of reference. Fourth, to be aware of the consequences of these analyses for basic science and applied science in two ways: on the one hand, for the semantic differences between them, and, on the other, for the perspective of reference.
In this chapter, I shall argue that meaning postulates cannot account for a significant aspect of human lexical competence, namely the ability to apply words to objects and circumstances in the world (referential competence). I shall also argue that the desired account cannot be provided within the theoretical framework of truth-conditional semantics. This problem is highlighted by Kripke’s and Putnam’s arguments against the idea that reference and truth-conditions are cognitively determined. If these arguments are successful, then truth-conditional semantics requires an objective or metaphysical notion of reference, a notion which cannot easily be implemented by a psychological theory of human semantic competence. As we will see, in philosophical semantics, there are two main possible reactions to this difficulty: the first reaction is to force the notion of objective reference within the limits of a psychological theory of competence; the second reaction is to argue that providing a theory of objective reference and providing a theory of referential competence are two radically different endeavours. I shall opt for the second solution, and, for the remainder of this work, I shall be exclusively concerned with referential (vs inferential) competence, as distinct from objective or ‘metaphysical’ reference.
The question of how psychiatric classifications are made up and to what they refer has attracted the attention of philosophers in recent years. In this paper, I review the claims of authors who discuss psychiatric classification in terms referring both to the philosophical tradition of natural kinds and to the sociological tradition of social constructionism-especially those of Ian Hacking and his critics. I examine both the ontological and the social aspects of what it means for something to be a mental disorder, and how the ontological status of these disorders hinges on social causation. Finally, I conclude by suggesting a way in which the biological and the social may be reconciled in an integrative model of variation in psychiatric disorder.
Las teorías de la referencia puramente descriptivistas o causales fracasan a la hora de dar cuenta del modo en que se fija y puede rastrearse la referencia de los términos teóricos. Psillos propuso dos versiones del descriptivismo causal que recogen argu-mentos presentes en defensas previas de dicha posición. Se trata de una teoría mixta que pretende solucionar el problema y acomodarse a intuiciones presentes en enfo-ques alternativos, como el que apela a oraciones de Ramsey. El artículo se propone mostrar la insuficiencia del descriptivismo causal como solución al problema de la referencia de los términos teóricos.
The main topic of this paper is Kripke's and Putnam's view of natural kinds. After briey recounting the history of the concept of natural kinds in English-language philosophical literature of which Kripke and Putnam are descendants, I describe the main problems that the Kripke-Putnam conception is facing and present the solutions that have been offred to overcome those problems. Finally I advance a characteristics of natural kinds that is based on Kripke's and Putnam's conception but is modified so as to avoid the disadvantages of its predecessor. It is claimed that a kind will count as natural if it (i) is not human-made, (ii) has a complex stereotype and (iii) has an epistemologically hidden essence. In addition a kind that satisfies conditions (i)-(iii) has to comply with a version of Mill's principle, which is to prevent counting kinds whose members differ only in very few properties, such as cat and white cat, as different natural kinds. © 2010 by World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved.
Serious argumentation is not about opinions but about gaining orientation in new realms of reality. From a pragmatic point of view, orientation is the function of theory. In order to develop this view, the pragmatist and neopragmatist philosophy is critically examined. A concept of successful praxis is established as a basis of theoretical understanding. The growth of understanding is modeled as a differentiation of the theory concept into epistemic (old) and thetic (new) theory. Based on this, extensive conceptual clarifications of knowledge and truth are carried out with regard to the role of argument and via the critical examination of the respective work in analytical philosophy (e.g. the Gettier problem).
This book examines and proposes a solution to the knowability paradox. The paradox derives from the proof that if all truths are knowable, then all truths are known, which was first published by Frederic Fitch in 1963. It identifies two problems created by Fitch's proof: a perceived anti-realism and the paradox created by the proof. It is argued that although the two problems are related, a defence against the threat to anti-realism is no solution to the paradox. The neo-Russellian theory of quantification is considered the only acceptable solution to the paradox, since no other approach offers any hope of addressing the fundamental paradoxicality involved in asserting a lost logical distinction between actuality and possibility.
This paper argues that the concept of truth cannot be explained with the help of the idea of justification under ideal conditions. Truth is not a regulative idea. The attempt to replace a metaphysical correspondence theory of truth with one that is conceptually epistemic does not provide an exit from metaphysics, Truth and its justification do not coincide with reference to the ascription of judgements and beliefs, To save the normative power of truth no Archemedean point is needed.
The author observes that generic sentences like Ted votes for liberals are unspecified for a number of distinctions and may therefore be true descriptions of a variety of situations. Thus, the above sentence does not tell us (a) whether Ted votes only for liberals or for other candidates as well; (b) whether Ted votes at every election or only at some; (c) whether Ted votes for all the liberal candidates or only for some, etc. In this paper, nine such distinctions are identified and discussed. The author then argues that it is precisely this lack of specification for some relevant distinctions that, together with pragmatic factors, brings about the generic interpretation of such sentences. Genericness is thus traced back, not to a generic quantifier or VP operator, but primarily to the fact that there is no bounding (specification) of the situation in the sentence.
Causal descriptivism and its relative nominal descriptivism are critically examined. It is argued that they do not manage to undermine the principal conclusions of the new theory of reference.
Species in biology are traditionally perceived as kinds of organisms about which explanatory and predictive generalizations can be made, and biologists commonly use species in this manner. This perception of species is, however, in stark contrast with the currently accepted view that species are not kinds or classes at all, but individuals. In this paper I investigate the conditions under which the two views of species might be held simultaneously. Specifically, I ask whether upon acceptance of an ontology of species as diachronic segments of the tree of life (this is one version of the species as individuals ontology) species can perform the epistemic role of kinds of organisms to which explanatory and predictive generalizations apply. I show that, for species-level segments of the tree of life, several requirements have to be met before the performance of this epistemic role is possible, and I argue that these requirements can be met by defining species according to the Composite Species Concept proposed by Kornet and McAllister in the 1990s.
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