Article

Meaning and Necessity

Authors:
To read the full-text of this research, you can request a copy directly from the author.

No full-text available

Request Full-text Paper PDF

To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the author.

... Church [5] noted that Frege's theory of singular terms is therefore superior to Russell's, since it can reject undesired inferences by pointing out the confusion of reference (Bedeutung) and sense (Sinn). The distinction was elaborated by Carnap [4] and other adherents of possible-worlds semantics (PWS) in terms of extensions and possible-worlds intensions (i.e. certain functions to extensions). ...
... A natural choice for fulfilment of the requirements (1) - (2) is to employ Fregean modes of presentations (senses), explained in the Carnapian [4] spirit as possible-worlds intensions called (say) individual concepts. Explaining thus ITVs as denoting relations(-in-intension) between agents and the individual concepts. ...
... The argument can be seen as justified by (what we call) Strawsonian Presupposition Rule 2 (SPR2).4 Theorem 2. The following is a derived rule of ND TT * :Γ −→ ∼ ∼ ∼(Σ Σ Σ ι (λ x.= = = ι (D w , x))) : o T (SPR2) Γ −→ F (D w ) : o ⊥ ⊥ ⊥ Proof.To simplify the proof presentation, let's first state auxiliary matches M 1 , M 1 and derivationD 1 : o : o F −→ o : o F (WR) Γ, M 1 , o : o F −→ o : o F (RA) Γ, M 1 −→ o : o F (TM) Γ −→ o : o o (WR) Γ, M 1 −→ o : o o (β -EXP) Γ, M 1 −→ [λ o.o](o) : o F (AX) Γ, M 1 −→ Σ Σ Σ ι (λ x.= = = ι (D w , x)) : o o (a-SUB) Γ, M 1 −→ [λ o.o](Σ Σ Σ ι (λ x.= = = ι (x, D w ))) : o F (β -CON) Γ, M 1 −→ Σ Σ Σ ι (λ x.= = = ι (x, D w )) : o F (Σ-INST) Γ −→ Σ Σ Σ ι (λ x.= = = ι (x, D w )) : o F Proof of (SPR3). ...
Preprint
Full-text available
Formal reasoning with non-denoting terms, esp. non-referring descriptions such as "the King of France", is still an under-investigated area. The recent exception being a series of papers e.g. by Indrzejczak, Zawidzki and K\"rbis. The present paper offers an alternative to their approach since instead of free logic and sequent calculus, it's framed in partial type theory with natural deduction in sequent style. Using a Montague- and Tich\'y-style formalization of natural language, the paper successfully handles deduction with intensional transitives whose complements are non-referring descriptions, and derives Strawsonian rules for existential presuppositions of sentences with such descriptions.
... Church [5] noted that Frege's theory of singular terms is therefore superior to Russell's, since it can reject undesired inferences by pointing out the confusion of reference (Bedeutung) and sense (Sinn). The distinction was elaborated by Carnap [4] and other adherents of possible-worlds semantics (PWS) in terms of extensions and possible-worlds intensions (i.e. certain functions to extensions). ...
... A natural choice for fulfilment of the requirements (1) - (2) is to employ Fregean modes of presentations (senses), explained in the Carnapian [4] spirit as possible-worlds intensions called (say) individual concepts. Explaining thus ITVs as denoting relations(-in-intension) between agents and the individual concepts. ...
... The argument can be seen as justified by (what we call) Strawsonian Presupposition Rule 2 (SPR2).4 Theorem 2. The following is a derived rule of ND TT * :Γ −→ ∼ ∼ ∼(Σ Σ Σ ι (λ x.= = = ι (D w , x))) : o T (SPR2) Γ −→ F (D w ) : o ⊥ ⊥ ⊥ Proof.To simplify the proof presentation, let's first state auxiliary matches M 1 , M 1 and derivationD 1 : o : o F −→ o : o F (WR) Γ, M 1 , o : o F −→ o : o F (RA) Γ, M 1 −→ o : o F (TM) Γ −→ o : o o (WR) Γ, M 1 −→ o : o o (β -EXP) Γ, M 1 −→ [λ o.o](o) : o F (AX) Γ, M 1 −→ Σ Σ Σ ι (λ x.= = = ι (D w , x)) : o o (a-SUB) Γ, M 1 −→ [λ o.o](Σ Σ Σ ι (λ x.= = = ι (x, D w ))) : o F (β -CON) Γ, M 1 −→ Σ Σ Σ ι (λ x.= = = ι (x, D w )) : o F (Σ-INST) Γ −→ Σ Σ Σ ι (λ x.= = = ι (x, D w )) : o F Proof of (SPR3). ...
... Эссенциализм также обсуждается в контексте проблемы о том, что утверждения о естественных видах (type) нельзя редуцировать к утверждениям о единичных объектах (token), а значит естественные виды должны обозначать самостоятельные сущности (множества, классы, универсалии или что-либо еще) в отличие от фактических реализаций [Bird 2015]. Такой взгляд умножает сущности без необходимости [Carnap 1947]. Единичные объекты в своем существовании проявляют типичные свойства и типичное поведение. ...
... Экстенсионал представляет собой множество объектов, которые удовлетворяют критериям, входящим в интенсионал термина [Carnap, 1947]. Во множестве очевидно встречаются другие подмножества. ...
... The problem has a long-standing history, first addressed by Carnap in[3]. For a more recent discussion, see[4] and[5], among others. ...
Article
Full-text available
Fractional semantics provides a multi-valued interpretation of a variety of logics, governed by purely proof-theoretic principles. This approach employs a method of systematic decomposition of formulas through a well-disciplined sequent calculus, assigning a fractional value that measures the “quantity of identity” (intuitively, “quantity of truth”) within a sequent. A key consequence of this framework is the breakdown of the traditional symmetry between truth and contradiction. In this paper, we explore the ramifications of this novel perspective on classical logic. Specifically, we (i) introduce an alternative paraconsistent consequence relation, and (ii) show how the gradual character of contradictions induces a corresponding characterization of tautologies, thereby obtaining a full-fledged informational refinement of classical logic.
... The appearance of opacity is due to reference shift. Carnap (1956) develops this idea further. See Gibbard (1975) for an application of Carnap's theory to alethic modal contexts. ...
Article
Full-text available
This paper offers a new take on Avicenna's Flying Man, one that explains why it's better than its Cartesian counterpart.
... For the purposes of this paper, the central distinction will be between two different kinds of interpretation maps: an intension map and an extension map, which are best characterised using the Frege-Carnap-Lewis framework for semantics (Frege 1892, Carnap 1947, Lewis 1970). An intension is, roughly, the linguistic meaning of a term in a theory: expressed quantitatively (if the theory is quantitative), but in general terms. ...
Preprint
In this paper we have two aims: first, to draw attention to the close connexion between interpretation and scientific understanding; second, to give a detailed account of how theories without a spacetime can be interpreted, and so of how they can be understood. In order to do so, we of course need an account of what is meant by a theory `without a spacetime': which we also provide in this paper. We describe three tools, used by physicists, aimed at constructing interpretations which are adequate for the goal of understanding. We analyse examples from high-energy physics illustrating how physicists use these tools to construct interpretations and thereby attain understanding. The examples are: the 't Hooft approximation of gauge theories, random matrix models, causal sets, loop quantum gravity, and group field theory.
... 8 On the other hand, philosophers after Kant have challenged his tripartite classification and defended pre-Kantian epistemology. This is the case of certain logical empiricists such as Carnap (1947) or Ayer (1956), who challenged Kant's conceptual expansion by assimilating "a priori" to "analytic" (and, therefore, "a posteriori" to "synthetic"). This therefore means that post-Kantian authors (chronologically speaking) can defend a pre-Kantian epistemology (logically speaking), or even doubt its semantic interest by rejecting, like Quine (1951), the empirical relevance of the two pairs of analytical-synthetic and a priori-a posteriori opposition. ...
Article
Full-text available
It is argued that the theory of opposition is in position to contribute as a formal method of conceptual engineering, by means of an increasing dichotomy-making process that augments the number of elements into any structured lexical field. After recalling the roots of this theory and its logical tenets, it is shown how the processes of expansion and contraction of discourse can modify a lexical field and, with it, our collective representation of ideas. This theory can also bring some order to the question of disagreement in philosophical discourse: what do philosophers disagree about; how can we clarify the distinction between verbal disagreement (focused on words) and substantive disagreement (focused on things)? The ensuing construction of conceptual systems will be exemplified through three case studies of philosophy: desire, truth judgment, and the left–right political divide. The construction rules of such systems resort to the theory of opposition, which intends to improve our understanding of what entails either agreement or disagreement about the meaning of concepts. Such a better understanding of philosophical discourse relies on its formalization in terms of closed lexical fields, thereby leading to a comparative analysis of concepts in light of logical relations between their definitions.
... In particular, we consider the so-called Barcan formulas and their converses [Bar47] which seem to be a perennial source of discussion in formal metaphysics and epistemology. Our analysis of these formulas is applied to existence predicates [Sco79] and briefly to the issue of actualism versus possibilism in the metaphysics of modality (stemming from the the introduction of possible world semantics to explain modality [Car47], [Hin62], [Kri63], [Lew86]). Against the possibilist position that there exist non-actual entities, actualism asserts that there are no possibly existing but non-actual entities [Ada74]. ...
Preprint
Full-text available
The Alexandrov topology affords a well-known semantics of modal necessity and possibility. This paper develops an Alexandrov topological semantics of intuitionistic propositional modal logic internally in any elementary topos. This is done by constructing interior and closure operators on the power-object associated to a given relation in the ambient topos. When the relation is an order, these operators model intuitionistic S4; when the relation is an equivalence relation, they also model the characteristic (B) axiom of classical S5. The running example of interest arises from the Branching space-time of Nuel Belnap, which is shown to induce a histories presheaf upon which can be defined an equivalence relation of being obviously undivided at a given point event. These results have some philosophical implications. For example, we study the branching space-time example in light of the indistinguishability interpretation of epistemic modal logic. We will also study several famous first-order formulas in presheaf topos semantics such as the so-called Barcan formula. We shall see, however, that one of the Barcan converses is invalidated by a simple example of non-trivial space-time branching. This invalidates a thesis of metaphysical actualism, namely, that there are no possibly existing but non-actual entities.
... To consider a sign a sign, it must have a concept. This 'concept' either maintained with a term 'sense' (Frege 1892), 'signified' (Saussure 1916), 'thought' (Ogden and Richards 1923), or 'intension' (Carnap 1956), has to have a nature and this nature must be identified for us. Safavi (2019) showed that the concept of sign is a set of sentences which are propositions for the definition of that sign. ...
Article
Full-text available
Purpose: In this article, by considering the linguistic symbols, the author shows that the recognition of this relation depends on the encyclopedic knowledge of sign users. Theoretical Framework: From the hyponymic point of view, this article concerns signs whose referents are in another possible relations can be expanded to different types of sign. Result and Discussion: The writer used two kinds of signs for showing the truth-value of the assumption. First, signs which are compound and are the result of a selection and combination of different referents. Second, the signs which, by changing the Context B, change their identity and interpretation. Value/Originality: Hyponymy is one of the most well-known lexical relations in lexical semantics world. Accordingly, the aim of this article is to demonstrate how hyponymic lexical and it is possible to generalize this relation to other types of signs in semiotics.
... Para Carnap (1956), las preguntas acerca de la existencia de algún objeto son internas cuando el término utilizado para hacer referencia a dicho objeto fuera usado. El correcto uso de un determinado término dependerá de la categoría que defina el marco lingüístico bajo el cual el término opere. ...
Article
Full-text available
Se introduce la discusión del presente número en torno al trabajo de Juan Pablo Mañalich referido a la ontología de las normas. Trascontextualizar el debate en torno a la naturaleza de las normas y sus dos principales concepciones elaboradas por Alchourrón y Bulygin, se analizan las consecuencias que se siguen de la adopción de una u otra, tanto para el derecho penal como para la concepción de los sistemas jurídicos en general. Luego de ello, se presenta de forma general qué implica la adopción de una teoría artefactualista de las normas. Asimismo, se explican los principales puntos de desacuerdo entre comentaristas y el trabajo de Mañalich en cada uno de los asuntos tratados.
... At least some English determiners denote RELATIONS between sets whereas Oneida count verbs and count clauses denote PROPERTIES of sets. In the terminology used by Carnap (1947), the semantic representations of English and Oneida are not intensionally isomorphic. To the extent that linguists are interested in the meanings that can be expressed by the grammar rather than just the truth conditions, the existence of semantic differences between languages that are not truth-conditionally relevant is an important relativist fact to consider. ...
Article
Full-text available
One of the questions linguists try to answer is to what extent conceptual content is expressed similarly across languages. The null hypothesis is that languages express the same sorts of things but may differ in the particular morphological and syntactic constructions they use. This paper describes one semantic domain, quantification over objects in Oneida (Northern Iroquoian), where there is both variation in expression and variation in expressibility. Through a detailed and comprehensive description of quantificational expressions, we show that in Oneida quantification is pervasively and almost exclusively expressed by productive verb forms that are not number words; moreover, these verb forms head clauses (count clauses) adjoined to main clauses. We argue that to this morphosyntactic difference between Oneida and most languages corresponds a semantic difference, namely that in Oneida quantificational expressions denote properties of sets, whereas in most other languages they denote relations between sets (or between entities and sets), and this difference accounts for the systematic absence of proportional and partitive quantifiers in Oneida.
... There is metaphysical significance in considering a case of providing D knowledge to a cognitive agent of this world. 2 Definition (1) is similar to Carnap's (1947) "one state-description" (he notes that this idea was inspired by Wittgenstein) (p. 10). ...
Preprint
Full-text available
This paper proposes a metaphysical framework for distinguishing between human and machine intelligence. By drawing an analogy from Kant’s incongruent counterparts, it posits two identical deterministic worlds -- one comprising a human agent and the other comprising a machine agent. These agents exhibit different types of information processing mechanisms despite their apparent sameness in a causal sense. By postulating the distinctiveness of human over machine intelligence, this paper resolves what it refers to as “the vantage point problem” – namely, how to legitimize a determinist’s assertion of determinism by placing the determinist within the universe.
... In addition to the quantitative ideas of information suggested by Shannon and Weaver (1949), there is a vital qualitative notion of information going back to Carnap (1947), who suggested the use of modal logic to understand these qualitative aspects of information. Warren Weaver acknowledged: 'In fact, two messages, one of which is heavily loaded with meaning and the other of which is pure nonsense, can be exactly equivalent, from the present viewpoint, as regards information' (Shannon & Weaver, 1949, p. 8). ...
Article
Full-text available
Current genetics studies often refer to notions from information science. The purpose of this paper is to summarize and structure the different notions of information used in biology, as a step towards developing a taxonomy of information. Within this framework we propose an extension of Floridi’s conceptual model of information. We also make use of the concept of specified information and show that functional information and many other notions of information are either special cases of, or are closely related to, specified information. Since functionality of the proteins that genes code serves as an external and independent specification, this makes it possible to define genetic information in a way that includes semantic aspects. In particular, we discuss how to understand the qualitative aspects of genetic information, how to measure its quantitative aspects, and how variants of Shannon’s information measure can be applied to molecular sequence data of protein families. While a mathematical framework may not be able to incorporate all that is included within biological information, some aspects of it allow for statistical modelling. This is especially true if we restrict our focus on the discipline of genetics. The concept of genetic information is still disputed because it attributes semantic traits to what seems to be regular biochemical entities. Some researchers maintain that the use of information in biology is just metaphorical and may even be misleading. We argue that the foundation of the metaphorical view is relatively weak given the current findings in bioinformatics and show that the present understanding of genetics fits well into the context of the modern philosophy of information. The paper concludes that informational concepts have robust scientific applications at the level of genes.
... In addition to this collection of opinions of philosophers, Carnap's (1947) point of view should also be mentioned. He used two terms 'extension' and 'intension' and used these instead of Frege's (1892) 'Sinn' and 'Bedeutung'. ...
Article
Full-text available
Purpose: This paper is trying to show that the meaning of the sign has become a kind of mystery and has not yet been analyzed in a convincing way. Theoretical Framework: In this article, a model will be mentioned that can turn this mystery into a problem and then propose a solution for this problem. This article has theoretical aspect, and proceeds with a hypothesis that can maintain its efficiency for all kinds of signs. Result and Discussion: In this article, the author tried to explained three hypotheses. First, all the sentences that form in linguistic context will perceive based on sentence or sentences from background knowledge combined with sentences from situational context and the message. Second, the concept of unites in sentence shapes by proposition. Third, the assumption introduced in this article expand in all kinds of signs, whether symbol, icon or index. In another word, the concept of sign, from whatever kinds, forms by some sentences. Value/Originality: Each sign, from whatever kind, must signify something other than itself. This signification process links the form of a sign to its meaning and involved us in a problem that has always been taken for granted. What is taken for granted in the meantime is the ‘meaning’ of the sign, which has never been explicitly investigated.
... The probabilistic paradoxes are akin to the triviality results, due to Lewis (1976) and Hajek (1989), and others, which hit the hypothesis that the probability of an indicative amounts to the probability of the consequent conditional on the antecedent. Carnap (1947)'s idea of an intensional isomorphism, has to do with contexts created by attitude ascriptions: we seem to sometimes truthfully say that one has an attitude towards the proposition that ϕ without having it towards an intensionally equivalent ψ: John Doe may believe that 2 + 2 = 4 without believing Fermat's Last Theorem, etc. But, Williamson claims, Kripke (1979)'s Pierre puzzle should have alerted us to the possibility that our attitude ascriptions are also guided by heuristics which turn out to be occasionally inconsistent: [Kripke] plausibly suggests that English speakers rely on something like the schema "A normal English speaker who is not reticent will be disposed to sincere reflective assent to 'p' if and only if he believes that p". Plausibly, users of other natural languages rely on analogous schemata. ...
Article
Full-text available
A hyperintensional epistemic logic would take the contents which can be known or believed as more fine-grained than sets of possible worlds. I consider one objection to the idea: Williamson’s Objection from Overfitting. I propose a hyperintensional account of propositions as sets of worlds enriched with topics: what those propositions, and so the attitudes having them as contents, are about. I show that the account captures the conditions under which sentences express the same content; that it can be pervasively applied in formal and mainstream epistemology; and that it is left unscathed by the objection.
... The antecedent of a counterfactual however never happened but just could have been, which is hard to reason with. To cope with this logical clash, Lewis makes use of Carnap's ontology of possible worlds [23]. With this method, it is evaluated how far a possible world is away from the actual situation. ...
Article
Full-text available
Bayesian networks are commonly used for learning with uncertainty and incorporating expert knowledge. However, they are hard to interpret, especially when the network structure is complex. Methods used to explain Bayesian networks operate under certain assumptions about what constitutes the best explanation, without actually verifying these assumptions. One such common assumption is that a shorter length of the causal chain of one variable to another enhances its explanatory strength. Counterfactual explanations gained popularity in artificial intelligence over the last years. It is well-known that it is possible to generate counterfactuals from causal Bayesian networks, but there is no indication which of them are useful for explanatory purposes. In this paper, we examine how to apply findings from psychology to search for counterfactuals that are perceived as more useful explanations for the end user. For this purpose, we have conducted a questionnaire to test whether counterfactuals that change an actionable cause are considered more useful than counterfactuals that change a direct cause. The results of the questionnaire indicate that actionable counterfactuals are preferred regardless of being the direct cause or having a longer causal chain.
... 74). 2 his original purpose was to resolve an absolute versus relational space controversy. In addition, Gödel's theorem belongs in the field of mathematics, so its connection to determinism might be initially difficult to grasp. ...
Preprint
Full-text available
This paper proposes a new metaphysical framework for distinguishing between human and machine intelligence. By drawing an analogy from Kant’s incongruent counterparts, it posits two deterministic worlds -- one comprising a human agent and the other comprising a machine agent. Using ideas from Wittgenstein and Gödel, the paper defines “deterministic knowledge” and investigates how this knowledge is processed differently in those worlds. By postulating the distinctiveness of human intelligence, this paper addresses what it refers to as “the vantage point problem” – namely, how to make a qualitative distinction between the determinist and the universe where the determinist belongs.
... If, on the other hand, the analysandum and the analysans do not have the same sense, then the analysis can be informative, but incorrect, at least in some sense. To deal with this problem, Carnap (1956) proposes what he calls 'explication'. The aim of explication is to make a vague concept used in everyday life more exact or to replace it by a newly constructed, more exact concept, and hence it is not required that the explicatum have the same sense as the explicandum, although the former should correspond to the latter in such a way that the former can be used instead of the latter. ...
... Equipollence was taken by Frege (sometimes, at least) as a criterion for sameness of sense, but it's not very clear what Fregean senses are and so what precise intransitive account could be given for them. E.g., if one takes senses as standard intensions, as Carnap (1947) basically did, or as 'primary' intensions, as in two-dimensional semantics (Schroeter, 2021), thus as sets of epistemically possible scenarios (Lewisian centered worlds; see e.g. Chalmers (2011)), such individuations of content are still transitive. ...
Article
Full-text available
Sentences φ\varphi and ψ\psi are cognitive synonyms for one when they play the same role in one’s cognitive life. The notion is pervasive (Sect. 1), but elusive: it is bound to be hyperintensional (Sect. 2), but excessive fine-graining would trivialize it and there are reasons for some coarse-graining (Sect. 2.1). Conceptual limitations stand in the way of a natural algebra (Sect. 2.2), and it should be sensitive to subject matters (Sect. 2.3). A cognitively adequate individuation of content may be intransitive (Sect. 3) due to ‘dead parrot’ series: sequences of sentences φ1,,φn\varphi _1, \ldots , \varphi _n where adjacent φi\varphi _i and φi+1\varphi _{i+1} are cognitive synonyms while φ1\varphi _1 and φn\varphi _n are not (Sect. 3.1). Finding an intransitive account is hard: Fregean equipollence won’t do (Sect. 3.2) and a result by Leitgeb shows that it wouldn’t satisfy a minimal compositionality principle (Sect. 3.3).Sed contra, there are reasons for transitivity, too (Sect. 3.4). In Sect. 4, we come up with a formal semantics capturing this jumble of desiderata, thereby showing that the notion is coherent. In Sect. 5, we re-assess the desiderata in its light.
Article
Full-text available
Casimir Lewy (1919 – 1991) was an analytical philosopher born and raised in Poland, who worked and taught at the University of Cambridge. He left behind one book, Meaning and Modality published in 1976, as well as more than a dozen articles and reviews. He was remembered by his students as an exceptional teacher. This article is a reflection on whether Lewy should be called a forgotten philosopher, who perhaps deserves to be considered more widely as a Polish contributor to the advancements in analytic philosophy. To this end, the author presents and analyses 15 articles by Lewy published between 1937 and 1964, which are divided into four thematic categories: topics related to the justification of empirical propositions, epistemological topics other than justification, semiotics, and problems in the area of logic or set theory.
Article
Full-text available
Let {‘is a woodchuck’, ‘is a groundhog’} be a pair of synonymous lexical predicates. Are they intersubstitutable within a fine-grained attitude ascription without affecting either the truth-value of the ascription or the content of the attitude? I will show that synonymy is sufficient to preserve substitutability within any non-quotational context. Only this requires that substitution is executed within a semantics that observes semantic and epistemic transparency also in contexts such as hyperintensional belief reports. I will develop my argument within Transparent Intensional Logic. I use my pro-substitution claim to argue against one wrong reason for fine-graining, which introduces logical distinctions without semantic differences.
Book
Classical logic assumes that names are univocal: every name refers to exactly one existing individual. This Principle of Univocality has two parts: an existence assumption and a uniqueness assumption. The existence assumption holds that every name refers to at least oneindividual, and the uniqueness assumption states that every name refers to at most one individual. The various systems of free logic which have been developed and studied since the 1960s relax the existence assumption, but retain the uniqueness assumption. The present work investigates violations of both halves of the Principle of Univocality. That is, whereas the free logics developed from the 1960s are called 'free' because they are free of existential assumptions, the current Element generalizes this idea, to study logics that are free of uniqueness assumptions. We explore several versions of free logic, comparing their advantages and disadvantages. Applications of free logic to other areas of philosophy are explored.
Article
What a text means in translation is accepted, canonically, to be indeterminate. Authors can provide additional constraints to interpretation by taking care to explain some of the original context. But this requires making judgments about what counts, and readers can’t generally do that of sources except in retrospect. So the solution to the problem is taken to be “to become bilingual,” and basically do the translation work oneself. This means immersing in that foreign culture for long enough that its ways of being, and ways of meaning, become one’s own. When the subject of one’s interest is the undiscovered country, however, this goal remains forever inaccessible. That’s just not somewhere you can go and report back from. The true meanings of deceased authors are therefore forever inscrutable. Except, of course, in cases where historical traces can stand in their stead. Interactions with archival sources are thus offered as a new solution to the problems of indeterminacy and inscrutability: archives provide anchors to stabilize the received meaning of historical texts by offering evidence of what those involved in their production intended them to mean. Here, that is demonstrated with reference to (1) the difficulty of translating Jean Piaget’s (1896–1980) collection of essays entitled Sociological Studies and (2) the broader misunderstanding of Piaget’s sociality in relation to the popularity of its critique by Lev Vygotsky (1896–1934). We then find, in the process, new ways to consider a consistently thorny question: what is the means by which one attains truth? Here, we therefore articulate and illustrate the “Interpretation Game” by providing access to a curated selection of archival texts drawn from several collections never before considered in relation to the question of the meaning of “Piaget” as a holophrastic utterance. The result is then also a new look at Cold War-era developmental psychology, social psychology, educational theory, and genetic epistemology (the study of the construction of knowledge).
Article
The article addresses logical approaches to explaining the economic world. The introductory part reveals the general prerequisites for the logical analysis of large systems. The rest of the study is devoted to the logical structure of economic worlds: at micro-, macro- and mega-levels. The logical dimensions of the economic world are based mainly on deterministic logic, grounded in Antiquity, Modern era and institutional logic of the late XIX and XX centuries. The dynamics and structure of the micro level (enterprise, firm, MNE) is explained by the institutional logic based on the American school (R. Coase, O. Williamson, etc.). Institutional logic in a broad sense includes values, norms, customs that people use in their daily activities on the scale of a certain space and time. Economic institutions have a long history, accompanying socio-economic development from the Neolithic era to the modern one. Their logic was shaped by the level of social, economic, technological, cultural development of various human communities of the ecumene. The macro-level of economics, on the one hand, is defined by deterministic (Laplace’s) logic. Its essence is to take into account the whole set of possible factors (economic and non-economic ones) that affect the course of economic dynamics. Individual needs, preferences, productive capacity, interaction of individuals create the layout of neoclassical model of economy. Keynesian deterministic logic is structural in nature, when the behaviour of individuals is determined by the general state of the economy as a whole. The logic of Marxist economic analysis, also known as overdeterminism, is derived from dialectics. On the other hand, the works of T. Veblen, the old American school of institutionalism and modern representatives (D. North, R. Nelson, J. Winter) are of paramount importance. The tools of logical analysis of the mega-level are mostly reflected in the works of G. Leibniz, I. Kant, R. Carnap and in modern institutional logic. The logic of globalisation, its historical phases can be traced according to different types of globalisation in four spatio-temporal dimensions: extensiveness, intensity, velocity and reciprocity and three deterministic logics: technical (technological), economic and political.
Chapter
Prior to Kripke’s seminal work on the semantics of modal logic, McKinsey offered an alternative interpretation of the necessity operator, inspired by the Bolzano–Tarski notion of logical truth. According to this interpretation, ‘it is necessary that A’ is true just in case every sentence with the same logical form as A is true. In our paper, we investigate this interpretation of the modal operator, resolving some technical questions, and relating it to the logical interpretation of modality and some views in modal metaphysics. In particular, we present an hitherto unpublished solution to problems 41 and 42 from Friedman’s 102 problems, which uses a different method of proof from the solution presented in the paper of Tadeusz Prucnal.
Article
Full-text available
The conception of possible worlds, as proposed by Plantinga, presents certain issues, notably its dependence on the prior concept of modality. While Plantinga’s strategy for addressing the enigma of transworld identity carries metaphysical significance, it lacks epistemological value. This deficiency emerges because world-indexed properties do not serve as effective tools in epistemic practice compared to their counterparts, space–time-indexed properties. Moreover, Plantinga’s attempt to isolate transworld identification from transworld identity proves unconvincing. This paper contends that the intelligibility of modal discourse and reference forms the crux of transworld identity. It further demonstrates that transworld identification underpins this intelligibility in an epistemological sense. Therefore, the problem of transworld identification is epistemologically foundational to the issue of transworld identity, necessitating a comprehensive solution.
Article
Full-text available
Esta réplica ofrece una respuesta a los comentarios de Arriagada, Rodríguez y Godinho, centrada en los siguientes problemas: el entendimiento de las preguntas ontológicas sobre el cual se asienta la categorización de las normas jurídicas como artefactos institucionales abstractos; la relación existente entre las normas y el lenguaje, a propósito de la reconstrucción crítica de las concepciones expresiva e hilética y de la clarificación de cómo se conectan la semántica y la pragmática; la inteligibilidad de la postulación de artefactos culturales abstractos, entendidos como entidades dependientes de actitudes intencionales, y de la categorización de las normas jurídicas como entidades de esta clase; y la compatibilidad de la caracterización ontológica de las normas de comportamiento punitivamente reforzadas como artefactos institucionales con su caracterización funcional como razones autoritativas y externas para la acción, en consideración a las implicaciones que esa doble caracterización tiene para la teoría de los sistemas de derecho penal.
Chapter
The subject of this chapter is the most popular analysis of counterfactuals, i.e., possible worlds semantics. The chapter begins with a general characterization of this semantics, along with the key question of the philosophy of modality (Sect. 3.1). This aims to provide a basis for the analysis of counterfactuals in terms of possible worlds. In virtue of the standard (so-called ‘orthodox’) approach, every counterpossible is vacuously true. This motivates introducing a modification that results in extending the domain of worlds to include impossible worlds. Section 3.2 provides the details of the modified view, i.e., the semantics and metaphysics of impossible worlds. It also shows how the extension of the domain of worlds affects the analysis of one of the key notions of possible worlds semantics for counterfactuals, i.e., the notion of similarity between worlds. Since some advocates of orthodoxy have argued that the problem of counterpossibles should be shifted from the semantic question of truth-value to the pragmatic question of assertability, Sect. 3.3 examines these arguments and provides arguments against a pragmatic-oriented approach to counterpossibles.
Article
Gottlob Frege rozlišuje mezi smyslem a významem výrazů, přičemž smyslem rozumí to, co je výrazem vyjadřováno, významem pak to, co je jím označováno. Toto rozlišení se týká jak singulárních, tak obecných výrazů, ovšem Fregovy rozbory týkající se významu obecných výrazů jsou všeobecně méně známy. Chci zdůraznit skutečnost, že Frege považuje za význam obecných výrazů pojem, který chápe jako tzv. nenasycenou funkci, nikoli jako množinu nebo zobrazení. To mu umožňuje zachovat některé podstatné intuice týkající se obecnin – můžeme např. mít obecný pojem (znát nějakou vlastnost či relaci), aniž bychom věděli, jaké předměty pod něj spadají. Zároveň se snažím ukázat, že není jasné, nakolik Frege skutečně zastával tezi, která mu bývá obvykle přičítána, totiž že identita pojmů je dána jejich koextenzivitou. Gottlob Frege distinguished between sense and reference of expressions. 'Sense' according to him is that what the expression means, 'reference' is that what is designated by it. This distinction concerns both singular and general terms but Frege’s analyses focused on general terms are much less known. It is crucial, I argue, to appreciate the importance of the fact that the reference of a general term is, according to Frege, a concept – identified with an unsaturated function in the Fregean sense, i.e. not a set, and not a mapping. In this way Frege can keep some important intuitions about universals – for instance that we can have a general concept (know a property or a relation) even if we don’t know which objects fall under it. I also try to show that it is not clear whether Frege really defended the thesis usually attributed to him that the identity of concepts is guaranteed solely by their coextensivity.
Article
Gottlob Frege rozlišuje mezi smyslem a významem výrazů, přičemž smyslem rozumí to, co je výrazem vyjadřováno, významem pak to, co je jím označováno. Toto rozlišení se týká jak singulárních, tak obecných výrazů, ovšem Fregovy rozbory týkající se významu obecných výrazů jsou všeobecně méně známy. Chci zdůraznit skutečnost, že Frege považuje za význam obecných výrazů pojem, který chápe jako tzv. nenasycenou funkci, nikoli jako množinu nebo zobrazení. To mu umožňuje zachovat některé podstatné intuice týkající se obecnin – můžeme např. mít obecný pojem (znát nějakou vlastnost či relaci), aniž bychom věděli, jaké předměty pod něj spadají. Zároveň se snažím ukázat, že není jasné, nakolik Frege skutečně zastával tezi, která mu bývá obvykle přičítána, totiž že identita pojmů je dána jejich koextenzivitou. Gottlob Frege distinguished between sense and reference of expressions. 'Sense' according to him is that what the expression means, 'reference' is that what is designated by it. This distinction concerns both singular and general terms but Frege’s analyses focused on general terms are much less known. It is crucial, I argue, to appreciate the importance of the fact that the reference of a general term is, according to Frege, a concept – identified with an unsaturated function in the Fregean sense, i.e. not a set, and not a mapping. In this way Frege can keep some important intuitions about universals – for instance that we can have a general concept (know a property or a relation) even if we don’t know which objects fall under it. I also try to show that it is not clear whether Frege really defended the thesis usually attributed to him that the identity of concepts is guaranteed solely by their coextensivity.
Chapter
In order to understand what an obligation is it seems as a first step necessary to determine to which kind of entities it belongs to. It is a difference whether one conceives of an obligation as a social practice or as an abstract object. Although the concept “abstract object” enjoys widespread support, it is, at least for obligations, misleading because they are not an abstraction of empirical or social facts. Instead, they belong to the Ought which cannot be deducted from an Is. Moreover, there can be quite concrete and hence non-abstract obligations such as the duty to deliver a particular apple to a particular place. The paper will therefore argue that obligations shall be conceived of as ontologically ideal (“ideational”) entities and explore the consequences thereof.
Article
Full-text available
We investigate whether ordinary quantification over objects is an extensional phenomenon, or rather creates non-extensional contexts; each claim having been propounded by prominent philosophers. It turns out that the question only makes sense relative to a background theory of syntax and semantics (here called a grammar) that goes well beyond the inductive definition of formulas and the recursive definition of satisfaction. Two schemas for building quantificational grammars are developed, one that invariably constructs extensional grammars (in which quantification, in particular, thus behaves extensionally) and another that only generates non-extensional grammars (and in which quantification is responsible for the failure of extensionality). We then ask whether there are reasons to favor one of these grammar schemas over the other, and examine an argument according to which the proper formalization of deictic utterances requires adoption of non-extensional grammars.
Article
Se explica formalmente el modelo de funcionamiento de la ideología (MFI) que propone el autor. Dicha descripción pasa por los niveles retórico, lógico, matemático y computacional del lenguaje.
Chapter
Full-text available
In the present paper we discuss a recent suggestion of Schroeder-Heister concerning the possibility of defining an intensional notion of harmony using isomorphism in second-order propositional logic. The latter is not an absolute notion, but its definition is relative to the choice of criteria for identity of proofs. In the paper, it is argued that in order to attain a satisfactory account of harmony, one has to consider a notion of identity stronger than the usual one (based on β- and η-conversions) that the authors have investigated in recent work.
Article
The present study is mainly concerned with a very important area of English grammar which is “The English Modal Verbs” in terms of the technique of introducing them to second semester students in the English department at the university of Benghazi. The researcher tries to clarify the problems that our students face in learning the English Modal Verbs because of introducing them individually, not as members of three basic types of modality which are Epistemic Modality, Deontic Modality, and Dynamic Modality. The population of the study consisted of ten teachers and thirty students.. The main purpose of this study is to discover the difficulties that our students face in learning these modal verbs which have so many different meanings that make it difficult to learn. Three tools of investigation were used, namely a questionnaire for the sample teachers and a test for the sample students. The analysis of the collected data has shown that both of the sample teachers and the sample students face difficulty. As for students, they face difficulty in dealing with the English Modal Verbs when they come in a context while they could master them in individual sentences. That is because of the way which is used in their textbook in dealing with each Modal Verb individually.
Preprint
Full-text available
Combinatory Intensional Logic (CIL) is a general framework for a formal theory of natural language meaning and reasoning, including intensional logic. What sets this approach apart is a syntax close to the logico-semantic mechanisms of natural language and being compatible with logical realism, the view that properties, relations and propositions are entities in their own right as well as furnishing the senses of linguistic expressions. CIL models, which formalize a realm of interweavings of senses, are not based on possible world semantics or set-theoretic function spaces. Truth-values and references of senses are extensions determined by states-of-affairs, an idea that goes back to the Stoics. CIL was initially inspired by Bealer's project in Quality and Concept (1983). It was subsequently found that CIL is a good tool to address the shortcomings and gaps present in Bealer's approach, in particular with regards to the soundness proofs and the problem of unifying intensional and modal logic. In this paper we focus exclusively on the formal and mathematical foundations of CIL including a sketch of the main soundness result. A second paper will delve into the philosophical motivation, context and justification as well as further technical development regarding philosophical problems involving definite descriptions, proper names, individual concepts and definitions.
Article
Full-text available
Según el contextualismo epistemológico, el valor de verdad de las adscripciones de conocimiento o de justificación epistémica es dependiente del contexto. También otras dos opciones variabilistas como el invariantismo relativo al interés y el relativismo aceptan esa tesis, pero ninguno de los tres planteamientos resulta del todo satisfactorio. Dos alternativas son el invariantismo y el deflacionismo respecto del conocimiento, pero el invariantismo no está en mejor posición que el variabilismo. El enfoque deflacionista de Agustín Rayo podría ofrecer una salida contextualista, pero su concepción del espacio de posibilidad tiene la dificultad de que la naturaleza de la verdad es relativa a la concepción del espacio lógico y sigue enfrentándose a un desafío explicativo y normativo.
Book
This Element offers a new account of the philosophical significance of logical empiricism that relies on the past forty years of literature reassessing the project. It argues that while logical empiricism was committed to empiricism and did become tied to the trajectory of analytic philosophy, neither empiricism nor logical analysis per se was the deepest philosophical commitment of logical empiricism. That commitment was, rather, securing the scientific status of philosophy, bringing philosophy into a scientific conception of the world.
Chapter
Modal logics address uncertainty about truth values of statements by introducing and discussing the notion of possibility of truth in addition to the necessity of truth. In this, modal logics trespass the boundary between the realm of dichotomy true-false into the less transparent realm of certainly true-possibly true. As the latter is less rigorous about truth and the notions of necessity and possibility are open to various interpretations, the result is the existence of many variants of modal logics. We will follow in this chapter some line of more and more complex interpretations of necessity and possibility as well as their mutual relations.
Article
Full-text available
Recently, there has been much research into conceptual engineering in connection with feminist inquiry and activism, most notably involving gender issues, but also sexism and misogyny. Our paper contributes to this research by explicating, in a principled manner, a series of other concepts important for feminist research and activism, to wit, feminist political identity terms. More specifically, we show how the popular Conceptual Spaces Framework (CSF) can be used to identify and regiment concepts that are central to feminist research, focusing especially on feminism in France. According to the CSF, concepts can be represented geometrically, as regions in similarity spaces. A particular strength of the CSF framework is its empirically-focused methodology, which allows researchers to infer the boundaries of concepts from empirical data, thus eliminating the need to strongly rely on intuitions about meanings. This is shown to be especially valuable for the explication of concepts relating to feminist political identity, given that the intuitions of feminist scholars and activists about what would appear to be core concepts in the area tend to be poorly aligned or even conflicting. We report the results from an empirical categorization study conducted among French feminists and show how they support the view that the CSF can contribute to both the conceptual engineering project and our understanding of the structure of social reality.
Chapter
The purpose of this chapter is to define the notion of justification for doxastic reports, sentences of the form “S\mathcal{S} believes that α”. What makes the problem particularly complex is the presence, in doxastic reports of natural languages, of a well-known ambiguity tracing back to Aristotle, and called in the Middle Age the De Dicto/De Re ambiguity ; it is therefore necessary to analyze preliminarily this ambiguity. In the Introduction (Sect. 7.1) it is argued that the De Dicto/De Re ambiguity conceals in fact two different ambiguities and distinctions: the Transparent/Opaque (TO) one and the Epistemic Specific/Non-specific (ESN) one. Section 7.2 is devoted to the TO ambiguity; in Sects. 7.2.1–7.2.5 it is argued that the foundational puzzles concerning it do not admit an optimal solution within the framework of externalist semantics; in Sects. 7.2.6–7.2.10 the distinction is analyzed and formally represented, within the framework of the internalist semantics outlined in Chaps. 4 and 5, as concerning not two kinds of belief but two different propositions semantically expressed—for the Believer and for the Reporter, respectively—by the subordinate clause of the belief report. In Sect. 7.3 a solution to the Paradox of Analysis is suggested. Sect. 7.4 is devoted to the ESN distinction; in Sect. 7.4.1 it is argued that it cannot be represented in terms of scope; in Sect. 7.4.2 a distinction is introduced between to kinds of cognitive states which can serve as justifications for sentences of the form ∃xα; in Sect. 7.4.3 the distinction is connected to the one between the assertibility conditions, within intuitionistic logic, of ∃xα and ¬∀x¬α; in Sect. 7.4.4 and in Sect. 7.4.5 the distinction is used to account for the ESN ambiguity.KeywordsBelief-reportsPropositional attitudesDe dicto/de reSpecific/non-specificSynonymyMates’ puzzleFrege’s puzzleKripke’s puzzleQuineInternalist semanticsParadox of analysisCognitive statesIntuitionism
Article
Tanulmányom célja az, hogy a lehetségesvilág-metafizika területén fellelhető álláspontok terét – amely magában foglalja többek között a lehetségesvilág-fikcionalizmus erős és gyenge változatait – kibővítsem az erős artefaktualista lehetségesvilág-fikcionalizmussal. A lehetségesvilág-fikcionalizmus imént említett két „klasszikus” elmélete azt tűzte ki célul, hogy a lehetségesvilág-beszédmódot amellett tartsa meg, hogy a nem kívánatos ontológiai terhet ledobja magáról. Azt gondolom, minden ilyen jellegű vállalkozás kudarcra van ítélve, ezért az általam javasolt álláspont egy újabb realista elgondolás. Szemben azonban a David Lewis-féle genuin realizmussal, amely konkrét entitásoknak gondolja a lehetséges világokat, valamint az ersatzrealizmussal, amely platonikus tárgyakként írja le őket, az általam képviselt álláspont szerint a lehetséges világok ember alkotta absztrakt létezők, azaz absztrakt artefaktumok.
ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any references for this publication.