Psychology Dictionary of ArgumentsHome
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| Coincidence: coincidence is not the absence of a causal explanation, but the coinciding of several events, which were caused by independent causal chains. The determination of a coincidence belongs to the description level and may express the deviation from an expectation. The property of being accidental is not inherent to events. See also determinism, indeterminism, contingency, necessity, probability._____________Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments. | |||
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Hartry Field on Coincidence - Dictionary of Arguments
II 50 Def Orthographic Coincidence/Predicate/Single-Digit/Multi-Digit/Belief/Field: E.g. All the different attributions, e.g. "X believes Russell was bald", "X believes Russell was bald or snow is white", etc. should be regarded as primitive single-digit predicates. - Then we could drop all two-digit predicates, such as "X believes that p", entirely. >Beliefs. Orthographic coincidence: then the fact that the expression "believes that" occurs in both (supposedly) single-digit predicates would be irrelevant, a mere orthographic coincidence. Similarly, the fact that both contain "Russell was bald". FieldVs: this cannot be taken seriously, but suppose it were serious: then it would follow that there do not have to be any physical relations between people and propositions. Then, since we did not speak of a psychological relation, it is clear that there is no realization in which a physical relation would be needed. ((s) Then there must be an infinite number of primitive predicates with complex structure.) Solution/Field: to avoid the "orthographic coincidence" "X believes that p0" should be considered as functionally definable for certain sentences p0, in the manner in which it is correct for "X is in pain." Conclusion: then we need physical properties and possible worlds. >Properties, >Possible worlds, cf. >Physicalism._____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition. |
Field I H. Field Realism, Mathematics and Modality Oxford New York 1989 Field II H. Field Truth and the Absence of Fact Oxford New York 2001 Field III H. Field Science without numbers Princeton New Jersey 1980 Field IV Hartry Field "Realism and Relativism", The Journal of Philosophy, 76 (1982), pp. 553-67 In Theories of Truth, Paul Horwich, Aldershot 1994 |
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> Counter arguments against Field
> Counter arguments in relation to Coincidence
