Find counter arguments by entering NameVs… or …VsName.
| Disputed term/author/ism | Author Vs Author |
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| Brandom, R. | McDowell Vs Brandom, R. | Esfeld I 185 McDowell: (1996, S 31 32): we are held captive by an oscillation between two positions: 1. a coherentism, that only permits rational relations between convictions. 2. the myth of the given, which confuses a causal relationship with a rational one. That is, it gives us an excuse rather than a justification. I 186 McDowellVstheory of coherence: lets revolve our convictions in the void, because no rational constraint on the part of the world is allowed. Solution: Term/world/McDowell: thesis: the conceptual realm is to be perceived of as having no boundaries: it does not end there, where people and their interactions end, rather it includes the entire physical realm. Content/McDowell: the facts themselves, which make up the world. To draw a boundary between the conceptual and the non-conceptual would prevent that we could utilize wordly, rational constraints on our convictions. Esfeld: that could be understood as meaning that this limit is only shifted so that the conceptual includes the experience, but then the relationship between world and experience would still be merely causal. World/McDowell: is in itself conceptual! McDowellVsBrandom: Vs inferential semantics. McDowellVsQuine: Vs confirmation of holism. I 187 McDowell/Esfeld: opens up the prospect of a comprehensive holism based on a holism philosophy of mind. The holism of persuasion refers to the whole conceptual realm. McDowell's unlimited conceptual realm thus expands the holism of persuasion. The physical world itself is not outside the realm of intelligibility. |
McDowell I John McDowell Mind and World, Cambridge/MA 1996 German Edition: Geist und Welt Frankfurt 2001 McDowell II John McDowell "Truth Conditions, Bivalence and Verificationism" In Truth and Meaning, G. Evans/J. McDowell Es I M. Esfeld Holismus Frankfurt/M 2002 |
| Cavell, St. | Fodor Vs Cavell, St. | III 222 Voluntary/CavellVsRyle: thesis: such contradictions are not empirical in any reasonable sense. III 224 FodorVsCavell: fallacy: Cavell overlooks the difference between what a native speaker says (when speaking) and what a native speaker says about what he/she and others say (metalinguistic comments). However, the latter need not be true for the linguist to begin his/her investigation. Cavell has not shown that an empirical description is possible only if the metalinguistic assertions are true. If the linguist wanted to separate true findings from false ones before starting with the description of the language, he/she would have to know a whole lot about the language before he/she begins with his/her work. If you cordon off empirical linguistics from grammar and semantics as domains where empiricism is not relevant, you make a distinction without a difference. Distinction without difference/Fodor: e.g. differentiating empirical linguistics from grammar and semantics as domains where empiricism is not relevant ist distinction without reference. III 225 Cavell: empirical are e.g. statements of native speakers about the phonology of the language, but not statements about syntax and semantics. FodorVsCavell: 1) this is inconsistent: conversely, every argument that shows that the native speaker is privileged to findings about syntax and semantics would equally show that he/she is privileged to such about the phonology. That would be a reductio ad absurdum of the argument, because then the native speaker could never err about pronunciation. 2) Even if CavellVsRyle was right, that would not show that Ryle’s error is not empirical. Language/empiricism/Cavell: his position is very extreme. Since he refers to the findings of native speakers as the truths of transcendental logic, he actually excludes the relevance of empirical confirmation! FodorVsCavell: he overlooks the fact that there are infinitely many findings that require empirical confirmation: e.g. "My name is not Stanley Cavell"... etc. FodorVsCavell: 1) error: the assumption that we could only question the findings in a sensible way if there is a specific reason to believe they might be wrong. This makes credulity a virtue and philosophy a vice. III 230 FodorVsCavell: 2) admittedly: it would be extraordinary to request reasons if we were often mistaken about what we say. Fodor: but if we are only sometimes mistaken, then it is always appropriate to demand reasons! From Cavell’s view it follows, however, that even if our lives depended on it, it would not be appropriate to question the findings! FodorVsCavell: 3) It is a wrong assumption that what we say about our language is rarely wrong. He overlooks his own distinction between type I and type II findings. He is certainly right that we do not often err about type I. Fodor: but we can often be mistaken with respect to type II findings: they are a kind of theory, an abstract representation of context properties (see above III 220 Type I Findings: "We say...... but we do not say...." ((s) use findings) Type II Findings: The addition of type I findings by explanations. Type III Findings: Generalizations). III 232 FodorVsCavell: e.g. baker/professor: can be understood in two ways: a) what type of information does the professor require? (Fodor: that would be non-empirical information. But Cavell is not asking for them. b) Cavell asks: if we already know that the language use of the baker is idiosyncratic, does then follow that the professor has no right to his "we" findings?. Cavell: No, that does not follow. Fodor: but you should bear in mind that this is irrelevant to the resolution of conflict between native speakers! FodorVsCavell: Cavell is right: the existence of different language use does not exclude the "we" findings. But he says the right thing for the wrong reasons: the finding of the professor is one about the standard use. There could be no generalizations at all if deviating use could not be tolerated in certain dimensions. III 233 FodorVsCavell: it looks philosophically more impressive if you say: "your deviating language use shields your view at reality," as if it merely restricted the possibilities of expression. But even that is not necessarily the case if someone uses two non-interchangeable words synonymously. |
F/L Jerry Fodor Ernest Lepore Holism. A Shoppers Guide Cambridge USA Oxford UK 1992 Fodor I Jerry Fodor "Special Sciences (or The Disunity of Science as a Working Hypothesis", Synthese 28 (1974), 97-115 In Kognitionswissenschaft, Dieter Münch Frankfurt/M. 1992 Fodor II Jerry Fodor Jerrold J. Katz Sprachphilosophie und Sprachwissenschaft In Linguistik und Philosophie, G. Grewendorf/G. Meggle Frankfurt/M. 1974/1995 Fodor III Jerry Fodor Jerrold J. Katz The availability of what we say in: Philosophical review, LXXII, 1963, pp.55-71 In Linguistik und Philosophie, G. Grewendorf/G. Meggle Frankfurt/M. 1974/1995 |
| Coherence Theory | McDowell Vs Coherence Theory | Esfeld I 185 McDowell: (1996, S 31 32): we are held captive by an oscillation between two positions: 1. a coherentism, that only permits rational relations between convictions. 2. the myth of the given, which confuses a causal relationship with a rational one. That is, it gives us an excuse rather than a justification. I 186 McDowellVstheory of coherence: lets revolve our convictions in the void, because no rational constraint on the part of the world is allowed. Solution: Term/world/McDowell: thesis: the conceptual realm is to be perceived of as having no boundaries: it does not end there, where people and their interactions end, rather it includes the entire physical realm. Content/McDowell: the facts themselves, which make up the world. To draw a boundary between the conceptual and the non-conceptual would prevent that we could utilize wordly, rational constraints on our convictions. Esfeld: that could be understood as meaning that this limit is only shifted so that the conceptual includes the experience, but then the relationship between world and experience would still be merely causal. World/McDowell: is in itself conceptual! McDowellVsBrandom: Vs inferential semantics. McDowellVsQuine: Vs confirmation of holism. I 187 McDowell/Esfeld: opens up the prospect of a comprehensive holism based on a holism philosophy of mind. The holism of persuasion refers to the whole conceptual realm. McDowell's unlimited conceptual realm thus expands the holism of persuasion. The physical world itself is not outside the realm of intelligibility. |
McDowell II John McDowell "Truth Conditions, Bivalence and Verificationism" In Truth and Meaning, G. Evans/J. McDowell Es I M. Esfeld Holismus Frankfurt/M 2002 |
| Devitt, M. | Rorty Vs Devitt, M. | Horwich I 463 Making True/True Maker/Davidson: the totality of evidence makes sentences or theories true. But no thing, no experience, no surface stimuli, not even the world makes sentences true. Rorty: I interpret this so that the inferential relations between beliefs have nothing in particular to do with the relation of "being about something" (aboutness relation) to objects. ((s) >Holism). Reference/Empiricism/Evidence/Davidson/Rorty: the lines of the confirmation (evidential force) are not parallel to those of reference. That is due to the epistemic holism. Knowledge of the former is knowledge of the language, knowledge of the latter is an empirical theory about meaning in language use. This is also a story about the causal roles within language behavior in the interaction with the environment. confirmation/Justification/Causality/Wittgenstein/Davidson/Rorty: linking justification (by confirmation, evidence) with the causal story is the old metaphysical urge Wittgenstein helped to overcome by warning against "meanings" as entities. I 464 "Meanings" as entities: were then to play a double role as a cause and at the same time as justification. (>Explanation). E.g. sense data, e.g. surface stimuli. ((s) reductionism: question: does every reductionism assume double roles?) RortyVsDevitt/RortyVsField: Devitt succumbs to the pre-Wittgensteinean temptation if he follows Field by saying that we the "intuitive idea of a correspondence to an outside world" by wanting to make truth dependent on "true reference relations between words and objective reality". (DavidsonVsDevitt, DavidsonVsField, WittgensteinVsField: "real reference" pre-Wittgenstein). RortyVsDummett: he succumbs to the same temptation if he thinks that a state of the world can verify ((s) make true) a conviction. This corresponds to the idea rejected by Davidson that pieces of the world make beliefs true. ((s) Contradiction to the above: I 461: here relation with inferential relations: "piece by piece", "stone by stone", Davidson pro). Realism/Semantics/Devitt/Rorty: Devitt is right when he says that if we give up on Dummett's anti-holism, the question of "realism" is de-semanticized. RortyVsDevitt: it is thus also trivialized. Because then you cannot distinguish realism from the banal anti-idealistic thesis that physical objects exist independently of mind. Devitt thinks that this is an interesting and controversial thesis. |
Rorty I Richard Rorty Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, Princeton/NJ 1979 German Edition: Der Spiegel der Natur Frankfurt 1997 Rorty II Richard Rorty Philosophie & die Zukunft Frankfurt 2000 Rorty II (b) Richard Rorty "Habermas, Derrida and the Functions of Philosophy", in: R. Rorty, Truth and Progress. Philosophical Papers III, Cambridge/MA 1998 In Philosophie & die Zukunft, Frankfurt/M. 2000 Rorty II (c) Richard Rorty Analytic and Conversational Philosophy Conference fee "Philosophy and the other hgumanities", Stanford Humanities Center 1998 In Philosophie & die Zukunft, Frankfurt/M. 2000 Rorty II (d) Richard Rorty Justice as a Larger Loyalty, in: Ronald Bontekoe/Marietta Stepanians (eds.) Justice and Democracy. Cross-cultural Perspectives, University of Hawaii 1997 In Philosophie & die Zukunft, Frankfurt/M. 2000 Rorty II (e) Richard Rorty Spinoza, Pragmatismus und die Liebe zur Weisheit, Revised Spinoza Lecture April 1997, University of Amsterdam In Philosophie & die Zukunft, Frankfurt/M. 2000 Rorty II (f) Richard Rorty "Sein, das verstanden werden kann, ist Sprache", keynote lecture for Gadamer’ s 100th birthday, University of Heidelberg In Philosophie & die Zukunft, Frankfurt/M. 2000 Rorty II (g) Richard Rorty "Wild Orchids and Trotzky", in: Wild Orchids and Trotzky: Messages form American Universities ed. Mark Edmundson, New York 1993 In Philosophie & die Zukunft, Frankfurt/M. 2000 Rorty III Richard Rorty Contingency, Irony, and solidarity, Chambridge/MA 1989 German Edition: Kontingenz, Ironie und Solidarität Frankfurt 1992 Rorty IV (a) Richard Rorty "is Philosophy a Natural Kind?", in: R. Rorty, Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth. Philosophical Papers Vol. I, Cambridge/Ma 1991, pp. 46-62 In Eine Kultur ohne Zentrum, Stuttgart 1993 Rorty IV (b) Richard Rorty "Non-Reductive Physicalism" in: R. Rorty, Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth. Philosophical Papers Vol. I, Cambridge/Ma 1991, pp. 113-125 In Eine Kultur ohne Zentrum, Stuttgart 1993 Rorty IV (c) Richard Rorty "Heidegger, Kundera and Dickens" in: R. Rorty, Essays on Heidegger and Others. Philosophical Papers Vol. 2, Cambridge/MA 1991, pp. 66-82 In Eine Kultur ohne Zentrum, Stuttgart 1993 Rorty IV (d) Richard Rorty "Deconstruction and Circumvention" in: R. Rorty, Essays on Heidegger and Others. Philosophical Papers Vol. 2, Cambridge/MA 1991, pp. 85-106 In Eine Kultur ohne Zentrum, Stuttgart 1993 Rorty V (a) R. Rorty "Solidarity of Objectivity", Howison Lecture, University of California, Berkeley, January 1983 In Solidarität oder Objektivität?, Stuttgart 1998 Rorty V (b) Richard Rorty "Freud and Moral Reflection", Edith Weigert Lecture, Forum on Psychiatry and the Humanities, Washington School of Psychiatry, Oct. 19th 1984 In Solidarität oder Objektivität?, Stuttgart 1988 Rorty V (c) Richard Rorty The Priority of Democracy to Philosophy, in: John P. Reeder & Gene Outka (eds.), Prospects for a Common Morality. Princeton University Press. pp. 254-278 (1992) In Solidarität oder Objektivität?, Stuttgart 1988 Rorty VI Richard Rorty Truth and Progress, Cambridge/MA 1998 German Edition: Wahrheit und Fortschritt Frankfurt 2000 Horwich I P. Horwich (Ed.) Theories of Truth Aldershot 1994 |
| Hempel, C. | Schlick Vs Hempel, C. | I 91 Context: Schlick: The foundation of knowledge" (1934) HempelVsSchlick). HempelVsSchlick: he was a "metaphysician and poet". Proposition/reality/HempelVsSchlick: you cannot compare statements with facts! SchlickVsHempel: you can without being a metaphysician. I 92 E.g. I compare this sentence in my Baedeker "This cathedral has two towers" with reality: namely simply by looking at the cathedral. If someone has something against it, it may just be that he understands "Proposition" in another sense. Coherence theory/HempelVsSchlick/HempelVscorrespondence theorie: you can only compare propositions with each other. ((s) Not propositions with reality). Schlick: we can distinguish between cases where a written, printed or spoken proposition is compared with another written, printed or spoken proposition. Schlick: and I call that the comparison a proposition with a fact. HempelVsSchlick: statements can only be compared with other statements. ((s)> coherence, > coherence theory). SchlickVsHempel: Why? I take out the modest freedom to compare everything with everything. If propositions and facts are to be too far from each other? Too different? Should it be a mysterious property of propositions that they cannot be compared with anything? Fact/statement/Hempel: the gap between them is only a metaphysical. SchlickVsHempel: that may be so, but who believes because in such a gap? I 93 Def Proposition/Schlick: is a string along with the logical rules for their use. ((s) So almost a proposition, along with the importance of rules). Proposition meaning/Schlick: these rules culminate in "deictic" definitions that make up the meaning of the proposition. Verification/compliance/correspondence/SchlickVsHempel: to verify the proposition, I have to find out if the (meaning-) rules were followed. Why should it be impossible? E.g. I look at the cathedral and then at the proposition and realize that the symbol "two" is used in the proposition in connection with the symbol "towers" and so I will get to the same icon when applying the rules of counting the cathedral towers. Coherence theory/fact/proposition/Compare/Schlick: sometimes it is said that "in a logical sense" propositions can be compared only with other propositions. That may be so, but I do not know what is meant by a "comparison in a logical way". Comparison/HempelVsSchlick: we cannot say exactly what a comparison of statements and facts is, I 94 Because we cannot determine the structure of facts. Fact/structure/SchlickVsHempel: that we cannot determine the "structure of a fact" reminds me of the metaphysics of "things in themselves". If one does not deny the existence of facts, then why deny the possibility to determine their structure? Structure of a fact: E.g. if I count the towers of a cathedral, I become familiar with the structure of a certain fact. If you wanted to say that it is meaningless to speak of "structures of facts" at all that would be merely a question of terminology. One proposition is also not per se meaningful, but only in conjunction with the rules for its use. Fact/propositions/Compare/Vscorrespondence theory/SchlickVsHempel: that is what the whole controversy is about, if it should be impossible to compare propositions and facts, Hempel uses the words simply in a different sense. The easiest way to deny that you can compare them would be to say that there are simply no facts! (In formal speech: the rule of the word "fact" is such that it should not be used). Or maybe the comparison is simply never applied in the sciences? I think this is true for purely logical sciences such as mathematics, but not in experimental sciences. I 95 SchlickVsHempel: here is the psychological motivation of his criticism: it is about a vision that completely settles within the sciences. Science as a system of propositions. This should be a substitute for reality. Then "protocol statements" are used as a material, without subjecting them to an empirical test. Science/Schlick: But science is not the world! The universe of discourse is not the universe. It's one thing to ask how their whole system is constructed and why it is generally regarded as true, and another, why I even look at them as true. This is a psychological question. But none of the "cultural subordination". My trust in science and colleagues is that I found them trustful, every time I checked their allegations. I 96 Def confirmation/Schlick: the final step in the comparison between a statement and a fact. But one should not attach too much importance to the concept. I 97 Fact/proposition/compare/match/correspondence/HempelVsSchlick: his example for comparison is not quite adequate. (E.g. "The cathedral has two towers"). Hempel: I agree that one can consider propositions as empirical objects that can be compared with any other empirical object. But if we take that literally it leads to something like: I 98 E.g. "The proposition contains more parts, "the words" referred to" than the cathedral has towers". Correspondence/SchlickVsHempel: There is a different kind of comparison between proposition and fact: Comparison of symbols "two" in the sentence and the counting by looking at the cathedral. HempelVsSchlick: so by that he compares a proposition in Baedeker with the result of an action by himself. Coherence theory/Pointe: this result of the action is determined in a second proposition. And these two are compared! That is what I meant with "logical point". Revision/verification/coherence theory/HempelVsSchlick: it's about whether the propositions contradict each other. This goes even without knowing the meanings of the propositions! (> Carnap: "The logical syntax of the language", "Philosophy and logical syntax"). Example, the above two propositions, both contain an icon that is shaped like "two". |
Schlick I Moritz Schlick "Facts and Propositions" Analysis 2 (1935) pp. 65-70 In Theories of Truth, Paul Horwich 1994 Schlick II M. Schlick General Theory of Knowledge 1985 |
| Identity Theory | Loar Vs Identity Theory | I 15 VsType-Identity Theory/Type Identity/Loar: has often been rejected by physicalism in recent years in favor of the weaker token identity. (stronger/weaker). Loar: but there are correlation theories that are even weaker and these are too weak. For example that each mental state corresponds to one or more physical states. Type Identity (see below chapter 4): relativized to an individual at a certain time, there can be such a thing. 1. Argument for psychophysical correlations/Loar: if there are token identities between propositional attitudes and physical states, then there are also type correlations. I.e. beliefs and desires are among the causes of movements and physical events have only physical causes. I 16 Systematic Role: but we need it in addition: B is of a type that has a certain position in the system of state types of subject z, which are connected to t by certain counterfactual condition relations. Qualities 2. level: are involved here, a) of the persons, b) of the tokens of belief. Problem: this is very cumbersome. Can we not accept a weaker theory? With qualities of the 1st level? Example B's systematic role then consists partly in its possible interactions with other attitudes. Problem: in order to characterize types of attitudes, we have to abstract from their systematic roles. Abstraction: but does not work with counterfactual properties of the 1st level. ((s) because they are always related to a certain individual). I 17 Problem: then one should already have the concept of belief (circular). This is exactly the problem of analytical behaviorism. Solution/Loar: we go one level higher: quantification over types of the 1st level. For example, there are state types from z to t, which are organized counterfactually in this and that way. Token-Identity: here the physical token B must fulfill the predicate: "x is a belief that p" i.e. Systematic Role: from B to t must correspond to the position of this predicate in the belief-desire theory. However, the sR must be identified with a property of the 2. level! I.e. a property. The one that results from type-type relations for a person at a time t. Property 2. Level/Loar: here "believe that p". Mental state: is then identical to state types of the 2. level. VsIdentity: a correlation, which is not an identity, between mental state types M1...Mn and physical state types 1. level P1...Pn can then have this logical form: z is in Mi power of a state of the 1. level with the systematic role involved in Mi and Pi is that state 1. level. On the other hand: State 1. level: can be described by "z's belief that p to t". This has for z this or that systematic role to t. Identity theory/Loar: with this one can rightly say that mental states are identical with physical states of the 1. level. N.B.: but one also needs the former sense of "mental state" to be able to express that two living beings are in the same mental state. 2. Argument for psychophysical correlations/Loar: does not require token identities. Thesis: if belief and desire are causes of behavior, there must be psychophysical type correlations for individuals at certain times. N.B.: the argument is based on the consideration that no theory is immune to being irrelevant in terms of explanation. I 18 E.g. by future science. Question: what status should assumed beliefs and desires have to explain behaviour? Are they still relevant? Only justification: that the old theory makes some distinctions that make the new theory true. Loar: Thesis: in any case, we will still need psychophysical correlations, relativized to persons and times. Revisionism/Loar: for example, suppose one wanted to argue that no scientific finding could ever prove that we have no belief and no desires. I 19 Question: could anything at all falsify this attitude? Probably only knowledge about behaviour. Belief Desire theory/Loar: for them there are two possibilities, which status they have as theory: a) its truth logically follows its systematization success (this is instrumentalism with its perverse use of "true"). b) it is to be interpreted realistically, i.e. that its truth does not logically follow from its systematization success. They are then empirical like physical theories. Problem: we have a dogmatic dualism in which the theory could not be refuted by any degree of success in scientific explanation of behavior. Worse: with the argument about the conditions for the characteristic(s) it is not clear at all that the theory has a coherent interpretation. Stronger/Reduction: the requirement that the states are permanent even if not unchangeable and similarly organized in other individuals. Weaker: only relativization for times. Advantage: we do not need to demand an a priori fitting of our theory to the structure of theoretical psychology. Reduction: not every theory that explains the success of another theory reduces it. I.e. confirmation: a theory is not its elimination. |
Loar I B. Loar Mind and Meaning Cambridge 1981 Loar II Brian Loar "Two Theories of Meaning" In Truth and Meaning, G. Evans/J. McDowell Oxford 1976 |
| Induction | Popper Vs Induction | Schurz I 50 Induction/Schurz: 1) methodological induction: from observations. PopperVsInduction: induction is the central method of extraction of hypotheses and theories. Confusion of discovery and context of justification. How hypotheses are derived, perhaps even through guessing, is quite irrelevant for the context of justification. Therefore, methodical induction is dispensable. 2) Logical Induction/Carnap: not of the discovery but of the justification: method of determination of the degree of confirmation. II 51 PopperVs: one theory may prove to be closer to the truth than another, but that does not show that there is no third theory that is even closer to the truth. I.e. there is no claim to absoluteness for theories. Verisimilitude = probability. There is no limited space of linguistic possibility containing all possible alternative theories. This only applies for logical hypotheses! Empirical hypotheses: here it is possible to establish a finite list of all possible alternative hypotheses. Popper: competing theories can only be evaluated comparatively. I 52 3) Epistemic Induction/Musgrave/Schurz: if a theory was more successful so far, it is likely that it will be more successful in the future. This is not about object hypotheses, but about an epistemic meta-hypothesis on the degree of corroboration. The epistemic induction is indispensable. Without it, the Popperian method of practical tests would be meaningless. Past success would be irrelevant for future action. I 14/15 Criterion of Demarcation/Schurz: for metaphysics. Problem: principles which considered separately have no empirical consequences, can have new empirical consequences together with other theoretical propositions. I 15 Falsification/Asymmetry/Popper: applies with strict (unexceptional all-sentences): they cannot be verified by any finite set of observations, but falsified by a single counter-example. LakatosVsPopper: Theories are never discarded because of a single counter-example, but adapted. PopperVsInduction/Anti-Inductivism/Popper: Thesis: science can dispense with induction altogether. >Induction/Popper. |
Po I Karl Popper The Logic of Scientific Discovery, engl. trnsl. 1959 German Edition: Grundprobleme der Erkenntnislogik. Zum Problem der Methodenlehre In Wahrheitstheorien, Gunnar Skirbekk Frankfurt/M. 1977 Schu I G. Schurz Einführung in die Wissenschaftstheorie Darmstadt 2006 |
| Popper, K. | Rescher Vs Popper, K. | I 229 Correspondence is fundamental to definition - coherence is fundamental to criteria. Proposition: can be true or false. Judgement/Rescher: can be correct, incorrect or undecided. I 340 According to this distinction there is a correspondence theory of truth and falsity of propositions and a coherence theory of correctness, incorrectness or indecision of judgements. Criterion/Popper: all criterion-related truth theories must be classified as subjective. I 380f VsPopper: the epistemic criterion of conditions of acceptability does not raise questions about a way to truth about a "particular state of mind or disposition or belief". A criterion-based approach to accepting does not need to refer to any psychological beliefs or subjective conditions of acceptance. For example, the rule-based calculation test does not depend on psychological mechanisms. I 341 Rescher: this is not about what is true or false, but about what is justifiably considered to be true. Definitions and criteria are very close here. With some things there is no difference at all. For example, what is a chair? For others, there is a difference: for example, what is an unsolvable problem? Difference guaranteeing criterion - qualifying (authorizing) criterion. The problem arises with the question: "what is the relationship between corresponds to the criterion for X and is actually an X? Def guaranteeing criterion: logically excludes the absence of the required characteristics. Decides completely about the characteristics. Example triangularity is a guarantee of the criterion for triangularity. Def qualifying criterion: if the fulfillment of the criterion represents at best a rational justification. Presumed confirmation. |
Resch I Nicholas Rescher The Criteriology of Truth; Fundamental Aspects of the Coherence Theory of Truth, in: The Coherence Theory of Truth, Oxford 1973 - dt. Auszug: Die Kriterien der Wahrheit In Wahrheitstheorien, Gunnar Skirbekk Frankfurt/M. 1977 Resch II N. Rescher Kant and the Reach of Reason: Studies in Kant’ s Theory of Rational Systematization Cambridge 2010 |
| Positivism | Fodor Vs Positivism | II 107 Ordinary LanguageVsPositivism: this formalization is only useful where its structure mirrors the natural language. Otherwise, languages can be constructed so that they have any desired property. II 108 When a system is selected at random, no solutions can be expected. Formal Language/Fodor: there can be as many artificial languages as there are solutions to a problem. II 109 Most have been formed on the model of Principia Mathematica(1). This is not the best idea, because everyday language is much more complex. The positivist argues here that many aspects are disregarded, because they are unsystematic. II 110 FodorVsPositivism: he then asserts that his theory applies except in those cases in which it does not apply. II 112 Positivism/Language: distinguishes two branches of semantics: 1) The theory of meaning: relations between linguistic units: analyticity, synonymy, meaning. 2) The theory of designation: relations between linguistic units and reality: denoting, designating, truth, scope of concept. With regard to natural languages, semantic theories in which such concepts are unanalyzed basic concepts are empirically empty. Attempt at a solution: determining those basic concepts operationally. II 113 Vs: that ignores the possibility to construct a systematic theory of the semantic structure of a natural language. In addition, it cannot be expected that the search for operational rules clarifies the elementary semantic concepts if the second path is not taken simultaneously. II 117 Designation/FodorVsTarski: it is obvious that such systems cannot capture the designation problems in natural languages. E.g. "I want to be the Pope" does not designate the Pope. E.g. "I want to meet the Pope" designates the Pope. E.g. "I shot the man with the gun" may refer to "the man" or "the man with the gun". E.g. "The black blue dress" can refer to a checkered dress or the darker one. FodorVsPositivism: after questioning the positivist theories of designation we do not know more about the relationship between the natural language and the environment than before. Fodor/Lepore IV 49 Propositions/Fodor/Lepore: if statements are propositions, then they have their contents essentially (because they are individuated through them): IV 49/50 Now, if contents is determined through their its verification method (Peirce’s thesis), then statements have their confirmation methods essentially QuineVsPeirce: the Quine-Duhem thesis says that confirmation conditions are contingent! (It may always turn out to be wrong, nothing follows from the meaning about the confirmation). 1. Whitehead, A.N. and Russel, B. (1910). Principia Mathematica. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. |
F/L Jerry Fodor Ernest Lepore Holism. A Shoppers Guide Cambridge USA Oxford UK 1992 Fodor III Jerry Fodor Jerrold J. Katz The availability of what we say in: Philosophical review, LXXII, 1963, pp.55-71 In Linguistik und Philosophie, G. Grewendorf/G. Meggle Frankfurt/M. 1974/1995 |
| Positivism | Putnam Vs Positivism | Fraassen I 83 Conjunction/theory/science/unified science/Fraassen: Problem: "conjunction-objection" (first probably by Putnam): a conjunction of theories must receive truth, but not empirical adequacy. Fraassen I 222 FN 5 Conjunction/theories/Putnam: his "conjunction-objection" was an argument for that there is no positivist substitute for the notion of truth. (Reference and understanding, 1978). In another context: Putnam: This argument states that an approach that says that what we are looking for is a kind of acceptability, without the property of deductive unity (deductive closure) to not meet the standards of scientific practice. Fraassen I 83 Two incompatible theories can each be empirically adequate for themselves. Putnam: this is what the anti-realism needs to take. Fraassen: it depends on a logical point with regard to truth and adequacy, which needs to be clarified: Problem: in the scientific practice the conjunction of two believed (accepted) theories does not need to be believed (accepted). E.g. the Bohr-Sommerfeld theory. Fraassen I 84 could not be put in accordance with the special theory of relativity (SR). One is a correction of the other. Conjunction/logic: of theories. A theory is a corpus of sentences. Each assertion (statement) A can be regarded as little theory, and there is a family of models F(A) in which A is true. F(T): the family of models in which the theory T is true, consists of precisely these models that exist to F(A) for every statement A, which are part of T. Definition logic/Fraassen: is the study of the functions that lead from statement (premises) to statements (conclusions) and receive truth. Truth/theory/Fraassen: because of the intimate relationship between the truth of a theory and the truth of their sentences, the sentence logic, which we all love, leads to a logic of theories. Truth/Fraassen: is (as opposed to empirical adequacy) no global property of theories ((s) not all sentences must be true. Question: But has the theory as a whole to be empirically adequate?). Empirical adequacy/Fraassen: contrast is (unlike truth) a global property of theories. That is, there is no general pattern of statements (statements) so that when all statements (propositions) of the theory each have this characteristic in themselves, then the theory is empirically adequate. This can only be explained by the fact that theories are families of models, of which each has a particular family of substructures that correspond to possible phenomena (empirical substructures). Problem: because empirical meaning (empirical import) of a theory cannot be syntactically isolated, we need to define empirical adequacy directly without empirical detour. Empirical adequacy/Fraassen. Therefore, it makes no sense to ask about the empirical adequacy of individual statements, or about a logic of syntactical features of premises to conclusions that include empirical adequacy. Empirical adequacy/Fraassen: from a single statement it can only be determined in relation to a theory: contains F(A) at least one of the models, Fraassen I 85 which has this privileged status in the world? Problem: unlike with the truth, here the answer "yes" can be in relation to a theory and "no" in relation to another theory. --- Putnam I (a) 46 PutnamVsPositivism: one can easily construct a positivist theory that leads to successful predictions that no scientist could accept. --- I (c) 78 RealismVsPositivism: must leave it unexplained, that "electron calculi", "spacetime calculi" and "DNA calculi" correctly predict observable phenomena when there are no electrons, curved spacetime and no DNA molecules in reality. I (c) 79 The positivist has as a reply reductionist theories and theories of explanation, etc. --- I (h) 215 Truth/Positivism: what definition of "degree of confirmation" one accepts, is ultimately conventional, a question of purpose. I (h) 216 Ultimately, then, it is completely subjective. ((s) But not yet, when purposes are social). PutnamVsPositivism: so it ends as relativism. He can only avoid deductive inconsistency by agreeing that judgements are not rational. He has no response to the philosopher who says: VsPositivism: "I know what you mean, but positivism is not rational in my system." |
Putnam I Hilary Putnam Von einem Realistischen Standpunkt In Von einem realistischen Standpunkt, Vincent C. Müller Frankfurt 1993 Putnam I (a) Hilary Putnam Explanation and Reference, In: Glenn Pearce & Patrick Maynard (eds.), Conceptual Change. D. Reidel. pp. 196--214 (1973) In Von einem realistischen Standpunkt, Vincent C. Müller Reinbek 1993 Putnam I (b) Hilary Putnam Language and Reality, in: Mind, Language and Reality: Philosophical Papers, Volume 2. Cambridge University Press. pp. 272-90 (1995 In Von einem realistischen Standpunkt, Vincent C. Müller Reinbek 1993 Putnam I (c) Hilary Putnam What is Realism? in: Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 76 (1975):pp. 177 - 194. In Von einem realistischen Standpunkt, Vincent C. Müller Reinbek 1993 Putnam I (d) Hilary Putnam Models and Reality, Journal of Symbolic Logic 45 (3), 1980:pp. 464-482. In Von einem realistischen Standpunkt, Vincent C. Müller Reinbek 1993 Putnam I (e) Hilary Putnam Reference and Truth In Von einem realistischen Standpunkt, Vincent C. Müller Reinbek 1993 Putnam I (f) Hilary Putnam How to Be an Internal Realist and a Transcendental Idealist (at the Same Time) in: R. Haller/W. Grassl (eds): Sprache, Logik und Philosophie, Akten des 4. Internationalen Wittgenstein-Symposiums, 1979 In Von einem realistischen Standpunkt, Vincent C. Müller Reinbek 1993 Putnam I (g) Hilary Putnam Why there isn’t a ready-made world, Synthese 51 (2):205--228 (1982) In Von einem realistischen Standpunkt, Vincent C. Müller Reinbek 1993 Putnam I (h) Hilary Putnam Pourqui les Philosophes? in: A: Jacob (ed.) L’Encyclopédie PHilosophieque Universelle, Paris 1986 In Von einem realistischen Standpunkt, Vincent C. Müller Reinbek 1993 Putnam I (i) Hilary Putnam Realism with a Human Face, Cambridge/MA 1990 In Von einem realistischen Standpunkt, Vincent C. Müller Reinbek 1993 Putnam I (k) Hilary Putnam "Irrealism and Deconstruction", 6. Giford Lecture, St. Andrews 1990, in: H. Putnam, Renewing Philosophy (The Gifford Lectures), Cambridge/MA 1992, pp. 108-133 In Von einem realistischen Standpunkt, Vincent C. Müller Reinbek 1993 Putnam II Hilary Putnam Representation and Reality, Cambridge/MA 1988 German Edition: Repräsentation und Realität Frankfurt 1999 Putnam III Hilary Putnam Renewing Philosophy (The Gifford Lectures), Cambridge/MA 1992 German Edition: Für eine Erneuerung der Philosophie Stuttgart 1997 Putnam IV Hilary Putnam "Minds and Machines", in: Sidney Hook (ed.) Dimensions of Mind, New York 1960, pp. 138-164 In Künstliche Intelligenz, Walther Ch. Zimmerli/Stefan Wolf Stuttgart 1994 Putnam V Hilary Putnam Reason, Truth and History, Cambridge/MA 1981 German Edition: Vernunft, Wahrheit und Geschichte Frankfurt 1990 Putnam VI Hilary Putnam "Realism and Reason", Proceedings of the American Philosophical Association (1976) pp. 483-98 In Truth and Meaning, Paul Horwich Aldershot 1994 Putnam VII Hilary Putnam "A Defense of Internal Realism" in: James Conant (ed.)Realism with a Human Face, Cambridge/MA 1990 pp. 30-43 In Theories of Truth, Paul Horwich Aldershot 1994 SocPut I Robert D. Putnam Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community New York 2000 Fr I B. van Fraassen The Scientific Image Oxford 1980 |
| Putnam, H. | Rorty Vs Putnam, H. | McDowell I 175 Coherence Theory/Rorty pro Davidson: Beliefs: can a) be seen from the outside, perspective of the field researcher, causal interactions with the surroundings - b) from the inside, from the perspective of the natives, as rules of action. The inside view is normative, in the space of reasons. RortyVsPutnam: he attempts to somehow think this together. >Exterior/interior, Coherence Theory. McDowell I 178 RortyVsPutnam: By an "explanation of X" Putnam still understands a synopsis, the synthesis of external and internal position. Representatives of >disquotation believe that people could only be described in a behavioral manner. But why should it be impossible to consider supplements by normative representations? (Putnam's philosophy was ultimately traditional). Causality/Putnam: the desire to tell a story about the causal relationships of human pronouncements and environment does not rule out that a story is invented according to which the speakers express thoughts and make assertions, and try not to make mistakes. But these stories may then be indistinguishable! (PutnamVsRorty) Rorty Thesis: from a causal standpoint we cannot subdue our beliefs to standards of investigation. >Causality/Putnam, >Causality/Rorty. Rorty I 304 RortyVsPutnam: he provokes a pseudo-controversy between an "idealistic" and realistic theory of meaning. I 307 Putnam/Rorty: follows 3 thoughts: 1) against the construction of 'true' as synonymous with 'justified assertibility' (or any other "soft" concept to do with justification). This is to show that only a theory of the relationship between words and the world can give a satisfactory meaning of the concept of truth. 2) a certain type of sociological facts requires explanation: the reliability of normal methods of scientific research, the usefulness of our language as a means, and that these facts can be explained only on the basis of realism. 3) only the realist can avoid the inference from "many of the terms of the past did not refer" to "it is very likely that none of the terms used today refers". >Reference/Putnam. I 308 RortyVsPutnam: that is similar to the arguments of Moore against all attempts to define "good": "true, but not assertible" with reason" makes just as much sense as "good, but not conducive to the greatest happiness". I 312 Theoretical Terms/TT/Reference/Putnam/Rorty. We must prevent the disastrous consequence that no theoretical term refers to anything (argument 3), see above). What if we accepted a theory according to which electrons are like phlogiston? We would have to say that electrons do not exist in reality. What if this happened all the time? Of course, such a conclusion must be blocked. Granted desideratum of reference theory. I 313 RortyVsPutnam: puzzling for two reasons: 1) unclear from which philosophical standpoint it could be shown that the revolutionary transformation of science has come to an end. 2) even if there were such a standpoint, it remains unclear how the theory of reference could ever provide it. I 314 In a pre-theoretical sense we know very well that they have referred to such things. They all tried to cope with the same universe. I 315 Rorty: We should perhaps rather regard the function of an expression as "picking of entities" than as "description of reality". We could just represent things from the winning perspective in a way that even the most primitive animists talked about the movement of molecules and genes. This does not appease the skeptic who thinks that perhaps there are no molecules, but on the other hand it will also be unable to make a discovery about the relations between words and the world. Reference/Rorty: Dilemma: either we a) need the theory of reference as a guarantor of the success of today's science, or b) the reference theory is nothing more than a decision about how to write the history of science (rather than supplying its foundation.) I 319 Reference/RortyVsPutnam/RortyVsKripke: if the concept of "really talking about" is confused with the concept of reference, we can, like Kripke and Putnam, easily get the idea that we have "intuitions" about the reference. Rorty: in my opinion, the problem does not arise. The only question of fact that exists here, relates to the existence or non-existence of certain entities that are being talked about. I 320 Fiction/Reference/RortyVsKripke/RortyVsPutnam: of course there can be no reference to fictions. This corresponds to the technical and scientific use. But then "reference" has basically nothing to do with "talking about", and only comes into play after the choice between different strategies is made. Reference is a technical term, and therefore we have no intuitions about it! Real existence issues are also not affected by the criterion of Searle and Strawson! What then is the right criterion? Rorty: there is none at all! We cannot talk about non-existent entities, but we can also find out that we have actually talked about them! Talking about X in reality and talking about a real X is not the same thing. I 324 Realism/PutnamVsPutnam/Self-Criticism/Rorty: metaphysical realism collapses at the point where it claims to be different from Peirce's realism. I.e. the assertion that there is an ideal theory. I 326 Internal Realism/Putnam/Rorty: position according to which we can explain the "mundane" fact that the use of language contributes to achieving our goals, to our satisfaction, etc. by the fact that "not language, but the speakers reflect the world, insofar as they produce a symbolic representation of their environment. (Putnam). By means of our conventions we simply represent the universe better than ever. RortyVsPutnam: that means nothing more than that we congratulate ourselves to having invented the term lithium, so that lithium stands for something for which nothing has stood all the time. I 327 The fact that based on our insights we are quite capable of dealing with the world, is true but trivial. That we reasonably reflect it is "just an image". Rorty V 21 Analytic/Synthetic/Culture/Quine/Rorty: the same arguments can also be used to finish off the anthropological distinction between the intercultural and the intra-cultural. So we also manage without the concept of a universal transcultural rationality that Putnam cites against relativists. V 22 Truth/Putnam: "the very fact that we speak of our different conceptions of rationality sets a conceptual limit, a conceptual limit of the ideal truth." RortyVsPutnam: but what can such a limit do? Except for introducing a God standpoint after all? Rorty VI 75 Idealization/Ideal/Confirmation RortyVsPutnam: I cannot see what "idealized rational acceptability" can mean other than "acceptability for an ideal community". I.e. of tolerant and educated liberals. (>Peirce: "community of researchers at the ideal end of the research"). VI 76 Peirce/Terminology: "CSP" "Conceptual System Peirce" (so called by Sellars). Idealization/Ideal/confirmation/RortyVsPutnam: since forbids himself to reproduce the step of Williams back to approaching a single correct result, he has no way to go this step a la Peirce! VI 79 Human/Society/Good/Bad/Rorty: "we ourselves with our standards" does not mean "we, whether we are Nazis or not", but something like "language users who, by our knowledge, are improved remakes of ourselves." We have gone through a development process that we accept as rational persuasion. VI 80 This includes the prevention of brainwashing and friendly toleration of troublemakers à la Socrates and rogues à la Feyerabend. Does that mean we should keep the possibility of persuasion by Nazis open? Yes, it does, but it is no more dangerous than the possibility to return to the Ptolemaic worldview! PutnamVsRorty: "cope better" is not a concept according to which there are better or worse standards, ... it is an internal property of our image of justification, that a justification is independent of the majority ... (Rorty: I cannot remember having ever said that justification depends on a majority.) RortyVsPutnam: "better" in terms of "us at our best" less problematic than in terms of "idealized rational acceptability". Let's try a few new ways of thinking. VI 82 Putnam: what is "bad" supposed to mean here, except in regard to a failed metaphysical image? VI 87 Truth/Putnam: we cannot get around the fact that there is some sort of truth, some kind of accuracy, that has substance, and not merely owes to "disquotation"! This means that the normative cannot be eliminated. Putnam: this accuracy cannot apply only for a time and a place (RortyVsPutnam). VI 90 Ratio/Putnam: the ratio cannot be naturalized. RortyVsPutnam: this is ambiguous: on the one hand trivial, on the other hand, it is wrong to say that the Darwinian view leaves a gap in the causal fabric. Ratio/Putnam: it is both transcendent and immanent. (Rorty pro, but different sense of "transcendent": going beyond our practice today). RortyVsPutnam: confuses the possibility that the future transcends the present, with the need for eternity to transcend time. |
Rorty I Richard Rorty Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, Princeton/NJ 1979 German Edition: Der Spiegel der Natur Frankfurt 1997 Rorty VI Richard Rorty Truth and Progress, Cambridge/MA 1998 German Edition: Wahrheit und Fortschritt Frankfurt 2000 McDowell II John McDowell "Truth Conditions, Bivalence and Verificationism" In Truth and Meaning, G. Evans/J. McDowell |
| Quantum Mechanics | Verschiedene Vs Quantum Mechanics | Kanitscheider II 108 Quantum ChemistryVsQuantum Mechanics: Weak point of orthodox quantum mechanics: v. Neumann's traditional Hilbert-Space formulation (1929) is limited to closed systems with finite degrees of freedom, which means the neglect of the environment of the quantum system. Hennig Genz Gedankenexperimente, Weinheim 1999 VIII 208 Completeness/Quantum Mechanics/QM: the quantum mechanics is complete in the sense that more cannot be said about the locations of the particles than the probability distributions of the quantum mechanics permit. Problem: how can it be that Gretel's unsuccessful search not only creates the reality that it is not with her, but also the reality that it is in Hänsel's area? Einstein-Podoski-Rosen/EPR: that is impossible! She cannot instantly create reality in the distant territory. Reality must have existed before the first experiment. EPRVsQM: incomplete as it does not take into account existing realities. Instead, we need a theory that is real, local and causal. It should only concern properties of measurable physical objects. John Gribbin Schrödingers Kätzchen Frankfurt/M 1998 III 135 Quantum Electrodynamics/QED: (best confirmed theory of all times) provides information about the interaction of electrons with electromagnetic radiation. It explains everything except gravity and the behaviour of atomic nuclei (e.g. radioactive decay). III 137 Feynman: we only have three things to take care of: 1. the probability with which a photon moves from one place to another. 2. the probability with which an electron changes location, 3. the probability with which a photon is absorbed or emitted by an electron. III 138 Feynman realized that we had to take into account every possible route (Fig III 138). A lot of convolutions on the way from A to B. (Feynman diagrams). In the double-split experiment, we added the probabilities with which the light passed one of the columns. III 139 Feynman: why not cut more slits in the screen until there is no obstacle at all, since all the "slits" now overlap. Now that the screen has disappeared, we have to add all probabilities of all possible paths. For the complicated paths, the probabilities are very small and usually cancel each other out. Feynman showed with a mirror that their influence is still noticeable! III 140 The light chooses the most time-saving path. III 141 Gribbin: it actually happens that the light continues to travel at a different, flatter angle at the same time, other photons hit the eye perpendicularly... That we do not observe this is solely due to the fact that the paths in the vicinity of the shortest path are on the one hand more probable, and on the other hand mutually reinforce each other. But that is not the end of the story! III 142 Measurements show that reflected photons actually arrive from the far corner of the mirror, although they cancel each other out! III 142/143 Although neighboring parts of the mirror corner cancel each other out, you can still find mirror strips where the probabilities add up. How large the distance between the strips must be depends on the wavelength of the light: this is a nice confirmation of the wave particle dualism, since we consider the light here as photons. (diffraction grid). III 145 Similarly, all optical phenomena can be interpreted as the addition of probabilities, including lenses, diffraction and deceleration of light entering water, Poisson's spot, double-split experiment. III 150 VsQuantifier-Electrodynamics/VsQED: it is not completely flawless: difficulty in moving an electron: it would cause an endless addition of probabilities, the results would grow into infinity, that would be nonsense. III 145 Def magnetic moment of the electron: measure of the interaction of an electron with a magnetic field. III 147 Nature/Physics/Feynman: "The enormous diversity of nature can be derived from the monotonous repetition of the combination of only three basic processes" (see above). III 148 Feynman-Diagram: bizarre: two electrons interact by exchanging a photon, but we may just as well say that the second electron emits the photon "in the future" and this goes backwards in time so that it is absorbed by the first electron "in the past". It is well known that an electron can change into a pair of particles with positrons. The corresponding equations are symmetrical as usual. III 149 Feynman now realized that the whole interaction can be described with reference to a single electron: an electron moves from one place to another and interacts with a high-energy photon. Through this interaction, the electron is sent backwards in time until it interacts with another high-energy photon, becoming "reversed" and travelling again into the future. Three things seem to be involved in both interactions: positron, electron, photon. Similar to when a ray of light bounces off a mirror: two rays of light forming the appropriate angle and the mirror itself. Analogy: But just as in reality there is only one ray of light reflected back into space, there is also only one electron. Photons can act as "time mirrors" for electrons. Def Re-Normation: Method to get rid of the infinite. One divides both sides of the equation by infinity. Feynman: "Crazy". Hennig Genz Gedankenexperimente, Weinheim 1999 VII 275 Re-Normation: unfortunately also has to be applied to the vacuum, because the QED tells us that here the energy density is infinite. If you include the relativity theory, the situation gets even worse: there are still infinite quantities, but they cannot be renormalized anymore. Twistor theory/Penrose: Try to explain both the particles and the long empty distances within an object with the same theory. Measure/Length Unit: a universal length unit is obtained by combining the gravitational constant, Planck's Constant and the speed of light: "quantum of length". VII 276 Planck's Length: about 1035. Planck's time, etc. It is pointless to speak of a time or length that is shorter. Quantum Foam/Wheeler: quantum fluctuations in the geometry of space are completely negligible on the level of atoms, even particles, but on this very fundamental level one can imagine space itself as a foam of quantum fluctuations. >Twistor theory/Penrose: Thesis: then one could imagine that all matter particles are no more than twisted fragments of empty space. |
Kanitsch I B. Kanitscheider Kosmologie Stuttgart 1991 Kanitsch II B. Kanitscheider Im Innern der Natur Darmstadt 1996 |
| Quine, W.V.O. | Fodor Vs Quine, W.V.O. | Esfeld I 62 FodorVsQuine: (and Lepore): the confirmation holism and verificationism refer to different things: Verificationism: refers to linguistic things. Confirmation holism: refers to cross-language entities like propositions. EsfeldVsFodor: However, if we assume beliefs, we can summarize both. Fodor II 114 Language/Behavior/Meaning/Quine/Fodor: but even if there were an identifiable property, how could we justify the assertion, assuming we had found it? Quine: (The Problem of Meaning in Linguistics): Test for the question of whether S is a grammatical phoneme sequence: whether the expression triggers puzzlement. FodorVsQuine: that will fail in both directions: 1) almost all expressions in everyday language are ungrammatical! 2) Almost every grammatical sentence may cause puzzlement in certain situations! Our intuitions about grammar are often not consistent with grammar as such. On the other hand, intuition in semantics is far less reliable than in grammar. Fodor/Lepore IV 54 Fodor/LeporeVsQuine: his argument is a fallacy of equivocation! ((s) Between statement and formula). (Namely: IV 52 Quine/Fodor/Lepore: Def immanence of confirmation: the thesis that, because confirmation is defined through types of entities whose connection IV 53 to a particular theory is essential, it does not have to be possible to construct such questions as if it were about whether two theories match regarding their confirmation conditions.). IV 76/77 Child/Language Acquisition/Language Learning/Quine: perhaps the child has a background (perhaps innate), E.g. about the character of his dialect? Anyway, in that case it differs from that of the linguist in that it is not a bootstrapping. Fodor/LeporeVsQuine: this is totally unjustified. His choice of a WT does not justify true belief and provides no knowledge. But then you cannot attribute any knowledge of the language to the child! Solution: Children know the language in the sense that they can speak it, therefore they have any possible true belief that the speaking may require ((s) and that is compatible with it, i.e. goes beyond that). Not even Quine believes that the epistemic situation of the child is fully characterized by the fact that the observational data are determined. Somehow, even the child generalizes. Problem: the principles of generalization, in turn, cannot have been learned. (Otherwise regress). They must be innate. Solution/Quine: similarity space. Likewise: Skinner: "intact organism" with innate dispositions to generalize in one, but not in the other direction. Hume: Association mechanisms, "intrinsic" in human nature, etc. - - - Note IV 237 13> IV 157 o Causal Theory: many philosophers consider causal relationships constitutive of semantic properties, but their examples always refer to specific intuitions about specific cases, E.g. that we need to distinguish the mental states of twins (Twin Earth?). Quine: he has, in contrast, no problem in explaining why that which causally causes consent must be the same that specifies the truth conditions. For Davidson rightly writes that, for Quine, these are the "sensory criteria" which Quine treats as evidence. And as a verificationist, Quine takes the evidence relation (evidence) as ipso facto constitutive of semantic relations. ((s): relation/relation). VsQuine: the price he has to pay for it is that he has no argument against skepticism!. IV 218 Intuitionism/Logic/Quine/Fodor/Lepore: Quine favors an ecumenical story, according to which the logical connections (connectives) signify different things, depending on whether they are used in classical or intuitionistic logic. Fodor/LeporeVsQuine: as long as there is no trans-theoretical concept of sentence identity, it is unclear how it is ever to be detected. |
F/L Jerry Fodor Ernest Lepore Holism. A Shoppers Guide Cambridge USA Oxford UK 1992 Fodor III Jerry Fodor Jerrold J. Katz The availability of what we say in: Philosophical review, LXXII, 1963, pp.55-71 In Linguistik und Philosophie, G. Grewendorf/G. Meggle Frankfurt/M. 1974/1995 Es I M. Esfeld Holismus Frankfurt/M 2002 |
| Quine, W.V.O. | McDowell Vs Quine, W.V.O. | I 162 McDowellVsQuine: contradiction: If experience is not part of the order of justification, it can not be exceeded by worldviews. But that is what "conceptual sovereignty" requires. The whole thesis of the indeterminacy of translation would become meeaningless if we can not talk about how someone comes to a worldview but only about causal acquired dispositions. On the other hand, if we were to abandon the "Tribunal," we would lose the right to speak of a more or less reasonable worldview. I 184 McDowellVsQuine: if we reject the Third dogma there are fatal consequences for Quine: for his argument he needs to maintain the duality endogenous/exogenous, which DavidsonVsQuine also rejects. I 185 McDowell: the "empirical significance" cannot be a proper meaning anyway, since - as a counterpart to "conceptual sovereignty" - it cannot have anything to do with reasons and justification. McDowellVsQuine: but that does not indicate that meaning is generally underdetermined! To that end one would have to show that we have an indelible leeway when we look for a kind of understanding that leads us outside the field of "empirical significance." An understanding, that shows how life phenomena are structured in the order of the justification, the space of reason. That can not be learned from Quine. I 186 Scheme/McDowellVsQuine: the idea of a structure that must be found in every understandable conceptual scheme must not have the effect that one imagines the scheme as one side of the dualism of world and schema. I 188 DavidsonVsQuine: If "empirical meaning" cannot be divided sentence by sentence among individual sentences, this does not mean that rational accountability towards experience cannot be dvided sentence by sentence among individual sentences. But then experience must really be regarded as a tribunal. theory/Quine/Duhem: the contestability through experience (Ex a black swan) can not be distributed among the sentences of the theory. McDowell: This is actually an argument for the indeterminacy of meaning. McDowellVsQuine: but the argument is only tenable if our experiential language is distinct from the theoretical language, so that the relevant experience does not already speak the language of theory. I 189 Theoretical Language/observational language/McDowellVsQuine: now it may be that both are actually distinguishable. Then, the observational significance of a single theoretical sentence would be indeterminate. But we could not derive a general indeterminacy of meaning from that! If we try, we are confronted with the third dogma. Esfeld I 63 Semantic holism/Quine: is conceived by him as a Type B (top down). Conceptual content is mainly the system of beliefs of each person as a whole. No two people ever have the same belief system. VsQuine: Problem: 1. How can two people share a belief at all if they do not share the whole system? 2. confirmation: how can expereince confirm propositions or beliefs at all? how should we understand the metaphor of the "tribunal of experience"? Experience: if it is conceptual, it consists in beliefs or statements. Then it is not even outside the system of beliefs. So it can not be confronted with the system! Experience: On the other hand if it were non-conceptual, it is unclear how it can exercise a rational control over a system of beliefs. Quine: "The core idea of the third dogma." "Tribunal." nothing more than excitation of receptors! Experience in this sense may cause beliefs. (DavidsonVs). Esfeld: but how then can experience be a reason? I 64 (S.McDowell I 157ff). |
McDowell II John McDowell "Truth Conditions, Bivalence and Verificationism" In Truth and Meaning, G. Evans/J. McDowell Es I M. Esfeld Holismus Frankfurt/M 2002 |
| Quine, W.V.O. | Millikan Vs Quine, W.V.O. | I 215 descriptive/referential/denotation/classification/Millikan: you can force a descriptive denotation to work referentially, Ex "He said that the winner was the loser." Ex (Russell) "I thought your yacht was larger than it is." I 216 Solution: "the winner" and "larger than your Yacht" must be regarded as classified according to the adjusted (adapted) sense. On the other hand: "The loser" probably has only descriptive of meaning. "Your Yacht" is classified by both: by adjusted and by relational sense, only "your" is purely referential. Quine: (classic example) Ex "Phillip believes that the capital of Honduras is in Nicaragua." MillikanVsQuine: according to Quine that's not obviously wrong. It can be read as true if "capital of Honduras" has relational sense in that context. referential/descriptive/attribution of belief/intentional/Millikan: there are exceptions, where the expressions do not work descriptively, nor purely referential, but also by relational sense or intension. Ex "the man who us drove home" is someone the speaker and hearer know very well. Then the hearer must assume that someone else is meant because the name is not used. Rule: here the second half of the rule for intentional contexts is violated, "use whichever expression that preserves the reference". This is often a sign that the first half is violated, "a sign has not only reference but also sense or intension, which must be preserved. Why else use such a complicated designation ("the man who drove us home"), instead of the name? Ortcutt/Ralph/spy/Quine/Millikan: Ex there is a man with a brown hat that Ralph has caught a glimpse of. Ralph assumes he is a spy. a) Ralph believes that the man he has caught a glimpse of is a spy. I 217 b) Ralph believes that the man with the brown hat is a spy. Millikan: The underlined parts are considered relational, b) is more questionable than a) because it is not clear whether Ralph has explicitly perceived him as wearing a brown hat. Quine: In addition, there is a gray-haired man that Ralph vaguely knows as a pillar of society, and that he is unaware of having seen, except once at the beach. c) Ralph believes that the man he saw on the beach is a spy. Millikan: that's for sure relational. As such, it will not follow from a) or b). Quine: adds only now that Ralph does not know this, but the two men are one and the same. d) Ralph believes that the man with the brown hat is not a spy. Now this is just wrong. Question: but what about e) Ralph believes that Ortcutt is a spy. f) Ralph believes that Ortcutt is not a spy. Quine: only now Quine tells us the man's name (which Ralph is unaware of). Millikan: Ex Jennifer, an acquaintance of Samuel Clemens, does not know that he is Mark Twain. I 218 She says: "I would love to meet Mark Twain" and not "I'd love to meet Samuel Clemens". language-dependent: here, "Mark Twain" is classified dependent on language. So also language bound intensions are not always irrelevant for intentional contexts. It had o be language-bound here to make it clear that the name itself is substantial, and also that it is futile to assume that she would have said she wanted to meet Samuel Clemens. Ralph/Quine/Millikan: Quine assumes that Ralph has not only two internal names for Ortcutt, but only one of them is linked to the external name Ortcutt. Millikan: Description: Ex you and I are watching Ralph, who is suspiciously observing Ortcutt standing behind a bush with a camera (surely he just wants to photograph cobwebs). Ralph did not recognize Ortcutt and you think: Goodness, Ralph believes that Ortcutt is a spy ". Pointe: in this context, the sentence is true! ((S) Because the name "Ortcutt" was given by us, not by Ralph). referential/Millikan: Solution: "Ortcutt" is classified here as referential. referential/Millikan. Ex "Last Halloween Susi actually thought, Robert (her brother) was a ghost." ((S) She did not think of Robert, nor of her brother, that he was a ghost, but that she had a ghost in front of her). MillikanVsQuine: as long as no one has explicitly asked or denied that Tom knows that Cicero is Tullius, the two attributions of belief "Tom believes that Cicero denounced Catiline" and "... Tullius ..." are equivalent! Language-bound intension/Millikan: is obtained only if the context makes it clear what words were used, or which public words the believer has as implicit intentions. Fully-developed (language-independent) intension/Millikan: for them the same applies if they are kept intentionally: I 219 Ex "The natives believe that Hesperus is a God and Phosphorus is a devil." But: Pointe: It is important that the intrinsic function of a sentence must be maintained when one passes to intentional contexts. That is the reason that in attribution of belief one cannot simply replace "Cicero is Tullius" by "Cicero is Cicero". ((S) trivial/non-trivial identity). Stabilizing function/statement of identity/Millikan: the stabilizing function is that the listener translates "A" and "B" into the same internal term. Therefore, the intrinsic function of "Cicero is Cicero" is different from that of "Cicero is Tullius". Since the intrinsic function is different one can not be used for the other in intentional contexts. Eigenfunction: Ex "Ortcutt is a spy and not a spy": has the Eigenfunkion to be translated into an internal sentence that has a subject and two predicates. No record of this form can be found in Ralph's head. Therefore one can not say that Ralph believes that Ortcutt is a spy and not a spy you. I 299 Non-contradiction/Millikan: the test is also a test of our ability to identify something and whether our concepts represent what they are supposed to project. MillikanVsQuine: but this is not about establishing "conditions for identity". And also not about "shared reference" ("the same apple again"). This is part of the problem of uniformity, not identity. It is not the problem to decide how an exclusive class should be split up. I 300 Ex deciding when red ends and orange begins. Instead, it's about learning to recognize Ex red under different circumstances. Truth/accuracy/criterion/Quine/Millikan: for Quine a criterion for right thinking seems to be that the relationship to a stimulus can be predicted. MillikanVsQuine: but how does learning to speak in unison facilitate the prediction? Agreement/MillikanVsQuine/MillikanVsWittgenstein: both are not aware of what agreement in judgments really is: it is not to speak in unison. If you do not say the same, that does not mean that one does not agree. Solution/Millikan: agreement is to say the same about the same. Mismatch: can arise only if sentences have subject-predicate structure and negation is permitted. One-word sentence/QuineVsFrege/Millikan: Quine goes so far as to allow "Ouch!" as a sentence. He thinks the difference between word and sentence in the end only concernes the printer. Negation/Millikan: the negation of a sentence is not proven by lack of evidence, but by positive facts (supra). Contradiction/Millikan: that we do not agree to a sentence and its negation simultaneously lies in nature (natural necessity). I 309 Thesis: lack of Contradiction is essentially based on the ontological structure of the world. agreement/MillikanVsWittgenstein/MillikanVsQuine/Millikan: both do not see the importance of the subject-predicate structure with negation. Therefore, they fail to recognize the importance of the agreement in the judgment. agreement: this is not about two people getting together, but that they get together with the world. agreement/mismatch/Millikan: are not two equally likely possibilities ((s) > inegalitarian theory/Nozick.) There are many more possibilities for a sentence to be wrong, than for the same sentence to be true. Now, if an entire pattern (system) of coinciding judgments appears that represent the same area (for example color) the probability that each participant reflects an area in the world outside is stupendous. ((s) yes - but not that they mean the same thing). Ex only because my judgments about the passage of time almost always matches with those of others, I have reason to believe that I have the ability to classify my memories correctly in the passage of time. Objectivity/time/perspective/mediuma/communication/Millikan: thesis: the medium that other people form by their remarks is the most accessible perspective for me that I can have in terms of time. I 312 Concept/law/theory/test/verification/Millikan: when a concept appears in a law, it is necessary I 313 to test it along with other concepts. These concepts are linked according to certain rules of inference. Concept/Millikan: because concepts consist of intensions, it is the intensions that have to be tested. Test: does not mean, however, that the occurrence of sensual data would be predicted. (MillikanVsQuine). theory of sensual data/today/Millikan: the prevailing view seems to be, thesis: that neither an internal nor an external language actually describes sensual data, except that the language depends on the previous concepts of external things that usually causes the sensual data. I 314 Forecast/prediction/to predict/prognosis/MillikanVsQuine/Millikan: we project the world to inhabit it, not to predict it. If predictions are useful, at least not from experiences in our nerve endings. confirmation/prediction/Millikan: A perceptual judgment implies mainly itself Ex if I want to verify that this container holds one liter, I don't have to be able to predict that the individual edges have a certain length.That is I need not be able to predict any particular sensual data. I 317 Theory/Verification/Test/MillikanVsQuine/Millikan: is it really true that all concepts must be tested together? Tradition says that not just a few, but most of our concepts are not of things that we observe directly, but of other things. Test/logical form/Millikan: if there is one thing A, which is identified by observing effects on B and C, isn't then the validity of the concepts of B and C tested together with the theory that ascribes the observed effects onto the influence of A, tested together with the concept of A? Millikan. No! From the fact that my intension of A goes back to intensions of B and C does not follow that the validity of the concepts, that govern B and C, is tested when the concept that governs A is tested and vice versa. Namely, it does not follow, if A is a specific denotation Ex "the first President of the United States" and it also does not follow, if the explicit intention of A represents something causally dependent. Ex "the mercury in the thermometer rose to mark 70" as intension of "the temperature was 70 degrees." I 318 Concept/Millikan: concepts are abilities - namely the ability to recognize something as self-identical. Test/Verification: the verifications of the validity of my concepts are quite independent of each other: Ex my ability to make a good cake is completely independent of my ability to break up eggs, even if I have to break up eggs to make the cake. Objectivity/objective reality/world/method/knowledge/Millikan: we obtain a knowledge of the outside world by applying different methods to obtain a result. Ex different methods of temperature measurement: So we come to the conclusion that temperature is something real. I 321 Knowledge/context/holism/Quine/MillikanVsQuine/Millikan: doesn't all knowledge depend on "collateral information", as Quine calls it? If all perception is interwoven with general theories, how can we test individual concepts independently from the rest? Two Dogmas/Quine/Millikan. Thesis: ~ "Our findings about the outside world do not stand individually before the tribunal of experience, but only as a body." Therefore: no single conviction is immune to correction. Test/Verification/MillikanVsHolismus/MillikanVsQuine/Millikan: most of our beliefs never stand before the tribunal of experience. I 322 Therefore, it is unlikely that such a conviction is ever supported or refuted by other beliefs. confirmation: single confirmation: by my ability to recognize objects that appear in my attitudes. From convictions being related does not follow that the concepts must be related as well. Identity/identification/Millikan: epistemology of identity is a matter of priority before the epistemology of judgments. |
Millikan I R. G. Millikan Language, Thought, and Other Biological Categories: New Foundations for Realism Cambridge 1987 Millikan II Ruth Millikan "Varieties of Purposive Behavior", in: Anthropomorphism, Anecdotes, and Animals, R. W. Mitchell, N. S. Thomspon and H. L. Miles (Eds.) Albany 1997, pp. 189-1967 In Der Geist der Tiere, D Perler/M. Wild Frankfurt/M. 2005 |
| Rey, G. | Fodor Vs Rey, G. | IV 219 Sentence/formula/Fodor/Lepore: Georges Rey reads Quine in a way that he reconstructs sentences as formulas, but without semantic holism (SH): 1) Sentence means formula! 2) Peirce’s thesis identified sentence meaning with empirical meaning (not with confirmation!) i.e. the set of observation sentences that confirm them. Def Empirical Meaning/(s): (according to Fodor/Lepore IV 219): empirical meaning corresponds to a set of observation sentences that confirm one sentence. Important argument: an observation sentence is a formula that is conditioned/confirmed by proximal stimuli. 3) The Quine-Duhem thesis (QDT) applies. Then it follows that no formula has any meaning outside of the overall theory! Fodor/LeporeVsRey: this is a very strange kind of semantics: because the meaning of each sentence consists in the observation consequences of the overall theory in which they are embedded, it follows that every sentence in a theory has the same meaning as any other sentence in that same theory! Def sentence meaning/Rey/Fodor/Lepore: sentence meaning consists in the observation consequences of the embedding overall theory. This implies, in turn, that no theory can contain a contingent conditional (hypothetical) in such that, if a disjunctive sentence is true (false), then both disjuncts are true or false, etc. IV 219 Furthermore, every sentence in a theory translates each sentence from an empirically equivalent theory and there are no relations between sentences from not empirically equivalent theories at all. A Quinean could accept all that and say: "so much the worse for those who insist on a semantics for individual sentences". Fodor/Lepore: that may be true, but in any case the Quine-Duhem thesis is trivialized: the only thing you have to hold on to when changing theory is the pronunciation! |
F/L Jerry Fodor Ernest Lepore Holism. A Shoppers Guide Cambridge USA Oxford UK 1992 Fodor III Jerry Fodor Jerrold J. Katz The availability of what we say in: Philosophical review, LXXII, 1963, pp.55-71 In Linguistik und Philosophie, G. Grewendorf/G. Meggle Frankfurt/M. 1974/1995 |
| Schlick, M. | Ayer Vs Schlick, M. | III 101 SchlickVsCoherence theory: beyond the consistency of a system, one can determine the correspondence with reality. Ayer: per Schlick. AyerVsSchlick: but we have no class of synthetic propositions which are indubitable. III 103 Def Truth criterion/Verification criterion/Ayer: the criterion by which we test the validity of our synthetic propositions is their conformity with reality (= sensation). I.e. the criterion is the agreement with our observations. Observation sentence/AyerVsSchlick: unfortunately is not content with that, but asserts that the sentences with which we describe our observation sentences, would be absolutely unquestionable. III 104 Observation sentence/AyerVsSchlick: the only sense in which a sentence can be absolutely sure is that its negation would be self-contradictory. And it is not self-contradictory E.g. saying "that’s not green" if someone says "this is green". Synthetic sentences are just not true because of their form alone. Observation sentence/Schlick: would say that he never asserted this. But that he only talked about the truth of such a proposition at the moment of perception. AyerVsSchlick: yet we must distinguish between false and such propositions that are true but trivial. What Schlick says, is nothing more than p implies p. But it is wrong to say that when I feel pain the sentence that I feel pain is objectively certain. Because that would be a different form: p implies that (p is objectively certain). And that is wrong if it is a synthetic proposition. III 105 Confirmation/Schlick/AyerVsSchlick: that Schlick felt uncomfortable with this himself is due to the vagueness of his concept. "Confirmations", of which he believed they were indubitable. confirmation/Schlick: is nothing that could be identified with something that can be expressed. This suggests that he thinks of actual perceptions, as opposed to the sentences that describe them. AyerVsSchlick: Dilemma: a) if confirmations are not entences but perceptions themselves, it makes no sense to say that they are indubitable or not indubitable. Because perceptions are not the sort of thing that can be doubted. It simply occurs. b) if they are observation sentences, they cannot be indubitable (see above). |
Ayer I Alfred J. Ayer "Truth" in: The Concept of a Person and other Essays, London 1963 In Wahrheitstheorien, Gunnar Skirbekk Frankfurt/M. 1977 Ayer II Alfred Jules Ayer Language, Truth and Logic, London 1936 In Philosophie im 20. Jahrhundert, A. Hügli/P. Lübcke Ayer III Alfred Jules Ayer "The Criterion of Truth", Analysis 3 (1935), pp. 28-32 In Theories of Truth, Paul Horwich Aldershot 1994 |
| Theory Ladenness | Wright Vs Theory Ladenness | I 204 Fashionable Thought/Realism/Theory/Science/WrightVs: every observation is "theory laden". Perception/theory: 1. Observation equals perception, and perception is to be distinguished from mere sensory perception, because it is conceptually coined. (McDowell pro). This now provides a good basis for the view that the conceptual equipment of the subjects is different. I 205 2. Every pre-philosophical utterance about the material world reaches beyond experience in an infinite number of ways. 3. The coverage of terms does not consist merely in classifying. They contain the possession of beliefs. (e.g. that things form a species at all). WrightVs: that is certainly all right. The purpose of the idea of theoreticity of observation should not, however, be to question the opposition between data and theory. I 206 Concept/Wright: a) Beliefs should not be assumed a priori for the concepts. This is not appropriate. Concepts are constantly in danger of being refuted by experience. b) The everyday content of experience is not an obstacle for pre-theoretical data. It can always happen that one agrees to an experience pattern against his background beliefs, even if this can be cancelled later again. Theoreticity of Contemplation/theory/Wright: 4. The kind of theory ladenness needed to get the distinction data/theory into difficulties is rather the following(see above): It must be shown that the conditions for assertion (assertibility) are necessarily a function not only of the content of the report and the quality of the input experiences, but also a function of collateral empirical beliefs. I 207 WrightVsTheoreticity of Observation/VsTheory Ladenness/Wright: if all observation theory is laden, there are no statements to which any subject is obliged to agree. (So no "synthetic" statements in the sense of Two Dogmas, final section). Wright: the justified assertiveness is rather a four-digit relation between: Statement - Subject - Course of Experience - Background Assumptions. I 208 Theory/Observation: Example A and B disagree on the stature of a theory Ho based on the observation Oo. B evaluates the same observations under a theory H1. A agrees that if H1 is accepted, his experience does not give enough reasons to accept Oo. Then it is not about vagueness, it is about status. This status question continues now, if it is about H1 instead of Ho: B accepts H1 because of O1, but A represents a theory H2...(I 209+) about O1. I 209 The other agrees that, if the other theory applies, the reaction of the other is appropriate. Divergence on each point, but agreement on conditional acceptability. I 210 We determine that the respective observation reports are correct in terms of experience and background theory. If everyone works with incorrect data, the result is that they create their reports in the context of an incorrect background theory. If he works with materially incomplete data, he necessarily works with a true background theory, which he does not agree with! Problem: can it be certainly considered a priori that there are nevertheless cognitive deficits regarding the theoretical background obligations? (Can only mean that one accepts a wrong theory). Evidence: whether a theory is erroneous or flawless must now (see above) at least in principle be recognizable! Such a confirmation, however, could ultimately only be provided by independently credible data. (Vstheory-ladenness of observation). I 211 However, the example shows the possibility that this remains undecidable. Vs: the relationship between experience and observation reports can plausibly be described as that of a "positive presumption". I.e. it is not as if experience tends to confirm or refute a report only in the context of appropriate empirical background beliefs, there is rather a Def default relation of confirmation between experiences and statements. Example "That star is of yellowish color" is a default justification insofar as it concerns the color. An appropriate justification by experience can be overridden in the context of appropriate background beliefs, but is otherwise presumably valid. ((s) As long as nothing else "appears"). Question: can one now assume cognitive deficiency after all? A theorist who accepts O n 1 may either do so because of his ignorance of this support for Hn, or he may prejudice the validity of the evidence. If now there is no other support for Hn, the assumption of Hn by the first theorist remains unjustified, and the denial in law. I 212 VsVs: this does not take into account that the regress of theories can interlock backwards. Therefore, one cannot claim that both theorists are to blame either for defending unsupported theories or for being cognitively deficient. Problem: Evidence/theory/Observation: if the truth is limited by evidence and all observation is theory laden, then differences of opinion cannot certainly be traced back to cognitive deficiencies. |
WrightCr I Crispin Wright Truth and Objectivity, Cambridge 1992 German Edition: Wahrheit und Objektivität Frankfurt 2001 WrightCr II Crispin Wright "Language-Mastery and Sorites Paradox" In Truth and Meaning, G. Evans/J. McDowell Oxford 1976 WrightGH I Georg Henrik von Wright Explanation and Understanding, New York 1971 German Edition: Erklären und Verstehen Hamburg 2008 |
| Tooley, M. | Armstrong Vs Tooley, M. | III 104 Tooley: if relations between universals are truthmakers, then these are "atomic facts". Then the standard principles could ascribe a probability of >0 to the confirmation theory. III 105 ArmstrongVsTooley: this is an initial possibility or logical possibility of a tautology. Empiricist should have doubts there. ForrestVsTooley: There could be infinitely many possible universals. Would the attributable initial probabilities not be infinitesimally small then? That would be no justification for the induction. VsInduction/VsBest Explanation: inductive skepticism could doubt that it really would be the best explanation, more fundamentally: why should the regularities in the world ever have an explanation (reg.)?. Regularity/Berkeley: through God. He could abolish the "laws of nature" tomorrow. Berkeley/Armstrong: Answering to this already means to concede the possibility. We have no guarantee that the best explanation is the best scheme. But it is informative. Arm III 120 Then all universals would only be substances in Hume’s sense: i.e. something that logically might have an independent existence. III 121 ArmstrongVsHume/ArmstronVsTooley: it is wrong to think of universals like that. Then there are problems regarding how universals are related with their particulars (part.). E.g. If a rel. between particulars a and b is something that is able to have an independent existence without a and b and any other particulars, would there not have to be at least one other relation to relate it to a and b?. And if this rel. can be uninstantiated itself (e.g. in a universe with monads!), then this rel. is just as questionable, etc. ad infinitum. (Bradley’s regress). One can avoid this only if universals are merely abstract factors of states of affairs (but real). |
Armstrong I David M. Armstrong Meaning and Communication, The Philosophical Review 80, 1971, pp. 427-447 In Handlung, Kommunikation, Bedeutung, Georg Meggle Frankfurt/M. 1979 Armstrong II (a) David M. Armstrong Dispositions as Categorical States In Dispositions, Tim Crane London New York 1996 Armstrong II (b) David M. Armstrong Place’ s and Armstrong’ s Views Compared and Contrasted In Dispositions, Tim Crane London New York 1996 Armstrong II (c) David M. Armstrong Reply to Martin In Dispositions, Tim Crane London New York 1996 Armstrong II (d) David M. Armstrong Second Reply to Martin London New York 1996 Armstrong III D. Armstrong What is a Law of Nature? Cambridge 1983 |
| Tradition | Sellars Vs Tradition | I 57 Meaning/Sellars: false: to regard it as a relation between a word and a non-linguistic entity. There is then the danger that one perceives this relation as a type of association. ((s) >tags, Myth of the museum). Meaning/relation/SellarsVsTradition: misleading that predicates would associated with objects. E.g. it is wrong that the semantic statement, ""red" means "rot" in German" would assert "red" would associated with red things. This would mean that this semantic statement would so to speak be a defining symbol of a longer statement on associative connections. That is not the case. (Here: difference of use and mention). (> Association). I 62 Report/act/Sellars: who supplies a report, does something. (SellarsVsTradition). Epistemology/tradition: a proposition token can play the role of a report, a) without that this is a public language implementation, and b) without speaker/listener! Sellars: here the accuracy of confirmations is supposed to correspond to the correctness of actions. This is not true, moreover, not every Ought is a Doing-Ought. I 65 Knowledge/SellarsVsTradition: Observational knowledge does not stand on its own two feet! It presupposes language acquisition. (Elsewhere: we cannot perceive a tree, without the concept of a tree.) But at the time of earlier perceptions you do not necessarily have to have had the concept. Long history of acquiring linguistic habits. Myth of the Factual/Sellars: thesis: that observation is constructed by self-authenticating, not linguistic episodes whose authority is transferred to linguistic and quasi linguistic full executions. I 84 Thinking/language/tradition: Thesis: Thoughts are possible without verbal ideas. I 88 SellarsVsTradition: Categories of intentionality are semantical. I 86 Theory/classic explanation/science/tradition/Sellars: the construction of a theory is to develop a system of postulates that is tentatively correlated with the observation language. SellarsVsTradition: this creates an extremely artificial and unrealistic picture of the actual procedure of scientists. I 87 Theory/Sellars: the basic assumptions of a theory are not normally formed by an uninterpreted calculus, but by a model (Def model/Sellars: the description of a domain of known objects that behave in the usual way). A model is distinguished primarily by the fact that it is provided with a comment which restricts or limits the analogies. The descriptions of the basic behaviors comply with the postulates of the logistical image of theorizing. SellarsVs logistical image of theorizing: most explanations did not come readily from the theorists' minds. There is a continuous transition between science and everyday life. The distinction between theory language and observation language belongs to the logic of the concepts of inner episodes. |
Sellars I Wilfrid Sellars The Myth of the Given: Three Lectures on the Philosophy of Mind, University of London 1956 in: H. Feigl/M. Scriven (eds.) Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science 1956 German Edition: Der Empirismus und die Philosophie des Geistes Paderborn 1999 Sellars II Wilfred Sellars Science, Perception, and Reality, London 1963 In Wahrheitstheorien, Gunnar Skirbekk Frankfurt/M. 1977 |
| Various Authors | Goodman Vs Various Authors | I 81 GoodmanVsIntrinsic/Extrinsic: this does apparently not work: because in every classification of properties in extrins./intrins. each image or each object has both internal and external poperties. II Preamble Putnam IX GoodmanVsFormalism for the Sake of Formalism. GoodmanVsIdea of an ontological basement independent from our theorizing II 10 It is not true that science could do without unreal conditional clauses. The tendency to dismiss the problems of unr. conditional clauses as a pseudo-problem or unsolvable is understandable considering the great difficulties (GoodmanVs.) If you drop all problems of disposition, possibility, scientific law, confirmation, etc., then you are in fact giving up the philosophy of science. II 67 The argument that one should better dispense with the definition of an expression if it was not usually defined by scientists or laymen, is similar to the argument that philosophy need not be systematic, because the reality described by it is not systematic (VsAdorno). You might as well say that philosophy should not be in German, because the reality is not written in German. II 70 (s) SalmonVsGoodman: Objects do not need to appear at all times, but places must be there at all times! ((s) GoodmanVs: Description dependence for him does not only refer to objects, but to the whole of reality. (VsKant)) Kant: space and time are not reality, but the condition for the possibility to experience reality. III 67 Presentation/Empathy/GoodmanVsEmpathy theory: Gestures do not need to have features in common with music. III 81 Metaphor: the general question: What does a metaphor say and what makes it true? GoodmanVsMetaphor as abridged comparison: sometimes we say a metaphor is elliptically designed and the metaphorical truth was simply understood as the literal truth of the extended statement. But the comparison cannot just result in the image of the person being similar in one respect or another. In this way, everything is similar to everything. III 224 GoodmanVs"Special Aesthetic Emotion" - GoodmanVs Theory that it does not depend on the pleasure that one has, but on a certain "objectified pleasure": Goodman: Then the pleasure would be something that the object must have, and indeed rather without causing it; ultimately it would therefore probably have to feel this pleasure itself. III 228 GoodmanVsDichotomy between the Cognitive and the Emotional. It blocks the insight that emotions work cognitively in the aesthetic experience. |
G IV N. Goodman Catherine Z. Elgin Reconceptions in Philosophy and Other Arts and Sciences, Indianapolis 1988 German Edition: Revisionen Frankfurt 1989 Goodman I N. Goodman Ways of Worldmaking, Indianapolis/Cambridge 1978 German Edition: Weisen der Welterzeugung Frankfurt 1984 Goodman II N. Goodman Fact, Fiction and Forecast, New York 1982 German Edition: Tatsache Fiktion Voraussage Frankfurt 1988 Goodman III N. Goodman Languages of Art. An Approach to a Theory of Symbols, Indianapolis 1976 German Edition: Sprachen der Kunst Frankfurt 1997 |
| Verificationism | Stroud Vs Verificationism | I 201 Verificationism/Knowledge/Stroud: this draws attention to a little-noticed problem of the relation between the verification principle and traditional skepticism: one usually only sees a one-sided competition between them: the principle implies that the skeptical conclusion is meaningless. Asymmetry: so the whole problem is meaningless. Verification Principle/VP/Skepticism/Stroud: but in reality have the same task to solve: to explain how our belief is empirically confirmed. SkepticismVsVerificationism: its standards of confirmation are not fulfilled at all. Stroud: this is a dispute about what our standards are and if anything fulfils them. No side is in a better position, they share the problem. I 202 Skepticism/Stroud: is not refuted by the verification principle: if we do not know whether we are dreaming, we also do not know whether the confirmation by evidence does not only take place in the dream. ((s) The argument of empirical verification is something quite different from the argument about the use of language.) confirmation/StroudVsVerificationism/StroudVsCarnap: there is already a conflict about how the verification principle (VP) should be formulated at all, or about what can be considered a confirmation. If the verification principle is to be adequate, it must imply that there can be no meaningful difficulty of the kind that the traditional skeptic puts forward. Problem: when formulating the principle, the principle itself cannot yet be applied to the decisive concept of confirmation. ((s) Otherwise circular). Empirical confirmation/confirmability/Stroud: their definition would need an explanation of how and why the traditional concept of our everyday practice should be wrong. I 203 Skepticism/Stroud: cannot simply be rejected without showing the relationship between "internal" and "external" (distanced) access as incoherent. StroudVsVerificationism: in everyday life, the conditions of the verification principle are never completely fulfilled. A successful theory of empirical confirmation must therefore show what is wrong with the concept of confirmation. It could nevertheless be that verificationism is on the right track. I 204 Confirmation/Tradition/Stroud: it is generally true that the problem of the outside world (skepticism) is empirically undecidable, no matter what concept of empirical confirmability one chooses. This is the common problem that scepticism and verificationism must share. So it seems reasonable that the verification principle must first be formulated precisely before it can be used. SkepticismVsVerificationism/StroudVsVerificationism: as long as lack of verifiability is connected with futility, our speech about the world around us will be condemned to futility if skepticism is right. StroudVsRational Reconstruction/StroudVsCarnap: we can leave the rational reconstruction aside and simply ask how plausible it is to make sense of verifiability. And apparently we cannot do that without trying to assess the plausibility of skepticism ((s) and not dismissing it as meaningless ourselves). I 205 SkepticismVsVerificationism/StroudVsVerificationism/StroudVsCarnap: even if verificationism is true, we still need an explanation of how and why traditional philosophical ((s) non-empirical) inquiry fails. ((s) should correspond here to skepticism). (>Why Question). Verification Principle/Stroud: to accept it, we need an understandable diagnosis of why and how skepticism is wrong. ((s) quasi circular, one presupposes the other). StroudVsVerificationism/DescartesVsVerificationism/StroudVsCarnap: Descartes' example "I don't know if I'm really sitting by the fireplace with a piece of paper in my hand" is a perfectly sensible sentence! We understand it well enough to know what would be the case if it were true. And it can be true or false. It would be nonsense to claim that sentences like "Here is a human hand" or "There are mountains in Africa" would be meaningless. Verificationism/Stroud: but only claims that they are meaningless in connection with the traditional conclusion that their truth can never be known (skeptical conclusion). I 206 Verification Principle/Stroud: we would have to show that there is nothing to fear from scepticism. |
Stroud I B. Stroud The Significance of philosophical scepticism Oxford 1984 |
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The author or concept searched is found in the following 4 theses of the more related field of specialization.
| Disputed term/author/ism | Author |
Entry |
Reference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Indeterminacy | Esfeld, M. | I 368/369 Indeterminacy/Belief/Holism/Esfeld: it is sometimes claimed that if Quine's Holism - and especially the Quine-Duhem-Thesis - is correct, there are no criteria for accepting beliefs! EsfeldVs: there is no such alleged link between holism and indeterminacy. Quine's criterion of the slightest change in the knowledge system does not logically belong to confirmation holism. Esfeld Thesis: As a result of the interlocking of science and metaphysics following Bell's theorem (and Two Dogmas), Quine's criterion enables a precise rational evaluation of the options of the interpretations of quantum theory. |
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| Justification | Field, Hartry | II 365 Explanation / justification / Field: declarations can only be considered as a justification if they are not too easy to reach! Dummett, Black, Friedman thesis: the use of credible methods initially increased their credibility. II 367 Rationality / FieldVs coherence theory: I prefer the lower threshold: the good induction and perception rules are a priori weak. II 371 It is misguided to try to reduce epistemic properties such as rationality to other terms. Horwich I 431 Confirmation / Field: there is no objective notion of "confirmation degree" or of justification. |
Horwich I P. Horwich (Ed.) Theories of Truth Aldershot 1994 |
| Quine-Duhem-Th. | Fodor, J. | IV 39 Quine-Duhem-Thesis (sentences are not individually verifiable) Quine-Duhem-Thesis/QDT/Fodor/Lepore: very compatible with realism. Quine-Duhem-Thesis/QDT/Fodor/Lepore: there are different versions in Two Dogmas, depending on how they are polemically used: Example a) "you can keep any statement if you are confronted with stubborn data". (Auxiliary hypotheses). IV 40 that is not the same as (b) the requirement that supporting documents must be a posteriori. But it's hard to see how the first can be true without the second. TD/Quine/Fodor/Lepore: in the middle between the two main parts there is this thesis the unity of meaning is not the proposition but the whole theory IV 50 Variant of Quine-Duhem-Thesis says: confirmation relations are a posteriori. |
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| Verificationism | Fodor, J. | IV 44 Confirmation relations are ipso facto semantic (Peirce thesis) - meaning = method of verification). IV 52 Def Immanence of Confirmation/L: because confirmation is defined about types of entities, their link is IV 53 essential to a particular theory. Therefore, it need not be possible to construct such questions as if it were a matter of whether two theories agree in relation to the conditions of confirmation. |
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