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Analyticity/Syntheticity | Dummett | II 134 Analytical/Frege: Analytically equivalent sentences must have the same sense, otherwise no criterion for identity. Propositional attitude: belief objects must be different when utterance reasons are different - E.g. Cathrine = Paul’s sister - then two analytically equivalent sentences do not have the same information content. Cf. >Intensions, >Propositions, >Opaque contexts. |
Dummett I M. Dummett The Origins of the Analytical Philosophy, London 1988 German Edition: Ursprünge der analytischen Philosophie Frankfurt 1992 Dummett II Michael Dummett "What ist a Theory of Meaning?" (ii) In Truth and Meaning, G. Evans/J. McDowell Oxford 1976 Dummett III M. Dummett Wahrheit Stuttgart 1982 Dummett III (a) Michael Dummett "Truth" in: Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 59 (1959) pp.141-162 In Wahrheit, Michael Dummett Stuttgart 1982 Dummett III (b) Michael Dummett "Frege’s Distiction between Sense and Reference", in: M. Dummett, Truth and Other Enigmas, London 1978, pp. 116-144 In Wahrheit, Stuttgart 1982 Dummett III (c) Michael Dummett "What is a Theory of Meaning?" in: S. Guttenplan (ed.) Mind and Language, Oxford 1975, pp. 97-138 In Wahrheit, Michael Dummett Stuttgart 1982 Dummett III (d) Michael Dummett "Bringing About the Past" in: Philosophical Review 73 (1964) pp.338-359 In Wahrheit, Michael Dummett Stuttgart 1982 Dummett III (e) Michael Dummett "Can Analytical Philosophy be Systematic, and Ought it to be?" in: Hegel-Studien, Beiheft 17 (1977) S. 305-326 In Wahrheit, Michael Dummett Stuttgart 1982 |
Beliefs | Loar | Schiffer I 19 Belief/Loar: a belief is understood as a function that depicts propositions on internal physical states. >Brain/Brain state, >Mental states, >Physical/psychic, >Propositions, >Materialism. These internal physical states have functional roles that are specified by these propositions. >Functional role. Schiffer I 286f Belief/SchifferVsLoar: Problem: his realization of a theory of beliefs/desires (as a function of propositions on physical states), whose functional roles are defined by the theory. Problem: to find a theory that correlates each proposition with a single functional role rather than many roles. >Mapping. Schiffer: this will not work, therefore the Quine-Field argument is done in. Quine-Field Argument/Schiffer: . . . Schiffer I 109 Def Conceptual Role/Field: (Field 1977)(1): the subjectively induced conditional probability function of an actor. Two mental representations s1 and s2 have the same conceptual role for one person iff. their (the person's) subjective conditional probability function is such that for each mental representation s the subjective probability of s1 given s is the same as that of s2 given s. SchifferVs: that never happens. Field ditto - E.g. blind persons certainly have different conceptual roles of flounders - then there will be no correlation to the belief objects either. 1. Hartry Field (1977).Logic, Meaning, and Conceptual Role. Journal of Philosophy 74 (7):378-409 . . . Schiffer I 286f Belief/Beliefs/Quine/Schiffer: for Quine, beliefs are never true, although he concedes Quine pro Brentano: ~ you cannot break out of the intentional vocabulary. >Beliefs/Quine, >Intentionality/Brentano. But: QuineVsBrentano: ~ the canonical scheme includes no propositional attitudes, only physical constitution and behavior of organisms. >Propositional attitudes. |
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 Schi I St. Schiffer Remnants of Meaning Cambridge 1987 |
Beliefs | Lycan | Cresswell I 112 Lycan/Belief/Conviction/Cresswell: Lycan's solution is quite different, Lycan thesis the sentence to which the belief is related, is not an entity of public language - rather, it is a kind of brain configuration. Cf. >Relation theory, >Belief objects, >Objects of thought, >Brain state. Brain State/Meaning/Lycan: thesis is not something that has a meaning, but I 113 a brain state is something that is a meaning. >Meaning, cf. >Propositions, >Intensions, >Language of thought. Brain State/Meaning/Cresswell: thesis: there is no way to understand a mental event, like e.g. that broccoli is disgusting, differently than based on any specification of its parts. >Understanding, >Analysis. I 114 Solution/Stalnaker/Cresswell: would probably say that mental events should be analyzed in terms of the actions that they have as a result. Then they would again be sets of possible worlds. >Possible worlds, >Actions. (s) Conclusion: this is about whether a formalization is possible that does not exclude that someone does not know what he thinks. If such a formalization is possible, then the theory from which it follows cannot be right.) >Beliefs, >Self-knowledge, >Knowledge. |
Lyc I W. G. Lycan Modality and Meaning Cr I M. J. Cresswell Semantical Essays (Possible worlds and their rivals) Dordrecht Boston 1988 Cr II M. J. Cresswell Structured Meanings Cambridge Mass. 1984 |
Beliefs | Stalnaker | I 54 Belief/objective/Lewis/Stalnaker: according to Lewis all objective impersonal beliefs are beliefs about what exists in reality, and not about the place of the believer in the world. They are either necessarily true or necessarily false. But beliefs do not express anything. Schiffer I 46 Belief/Stalnaker/Schiffer: a belief with content can have the form: "x believes that dogs have fleas". A belif without content can have the form: "x is a belief". Stalnaker/Stampe: counterfactual: x believes p iff. x is in a brain state, that x would not be under optimal conditions, if it were not the case that p. >Counterfactuals, >Counterfactual conditionals. Representation/Dretske: example fuel gauge: is a reliable indicator (> reliability) by regularity for the representation. SchifferVs: problem: if the condition is never met. Conclusion: if propositions are belief objects, then the theory is never functionalist. >Functionalism. |
Stalnaker I R. Stalnaker Ways a World may be Oxford New York 2003 Schi I St. Schiffer Remnants of Meaning Cambridge 1987 |
Causal Role | Lewis | I (a) 10 Causal role/Lewis: is accidental. --- IV 142 Causal role/Lewis: belief objects/Lewis: characterize mental states - but beliefs are not inside the head - when the attribution of objects depends on something outside of the head, then they cannot fulfill the causal role. - Causal role: owners are the states, not the objects! - ((s) otherwise the objects just acts as a parrot - beliefs are not the meanings of sentences. >Objects of thought, >Objects of belief, >Mental objects, >Propositional attitudes. |
Lewis I David K. Lewis Die Identität von Körper und Geist Frankfurt 1989 Lewis I (a) David K. Lewis An Argument for the Identity Theory, in: Journal of Philosophy 63 (1966) In Die Identität von Körper und Geist, Frankfurt/M. 1989 Lewis I (b) David K. Lewis Psychophysical and Theoretical Identifications, in: Australasian Journal of Philosophy 50 (1972) In Die Identität von Körper und Geist, Frankfurt/M. 1989 Lewis I (c) David K. Lewis Mad Pain and Martian Pain, Readings in Philosophy of Psychology, Vol. 1, Ned Block (ed.) Harvard University Press, 1980 In Die Identität von Körper und Geist, Frankfurt/M. 1989 Lewis II David K. Lewis "Languages and Language", in: K. Gunderson (Ed.), Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. VII, Language, Mind, and Knowledge, Minneapolis 1975, pp. 3-35 In Handlung, Kommunikation, Bedeutung, Georg Meggle Frankfurt/M. 1979 Lewis IV David K. Lewis Philosophical Papers Bd I New York Oxford 1983 Lewis V David K. Lewis Philosophical Papers Bd II New York Oxford 1986 Lewis VI David K. Lewis Convention. A Philosophical Study, Cambridge/MA 1969 German Edition: Konventionen Berlin 1975 LewisCl Clarence Irving Lewis Collected Papers of Clarence Irving Lewis Stanford 1970 LewisCl I Clarence Irving Lewis Mind and the World Order: Outline of a Theory of Knowledge (Dover Books on Western Philosophy) 1991 |
Conceptual Role | Schiffer | I 108f Conceptual Role/Schiffer: the conceptual role tells us how to get from stimuli to beliefs. >Stimuli, >Beliefs. The conceptual role of a mental representation is then the counterfactual role of the formula in the perceptual belief formation and in the reasoning. >Counterfactuals, >Mental representation. It is a counterfactual property. - A formal property of internal sentences. - It can be determined without reference to t-theoretical properties. The conceptual role of a mental representation does not determine the truth conditions. >Truth conditions. Twin earth; E.g. twin earth H2O and XYZ have the same conceptual role - i.e. the conceptual role is used in addition to the truth conditions. >Twin earth. I 109 Def Conceptual Role/Field: (Field 1977)(1): the subjectively induced conditional probability function of an actor. Two mental representations s1 and s2 have the same conceptual role for one person iff. their (the person's) subjective conditional probability function is such that for each mental representation s the subjective probability of s1 given s is the same as that of s2 given s. SchifferVs: that never happens. Field ditto - E.g. blind persons certainly have different conceptual roles of flounders - then there will be no correlation to the belief objects either. 1. Hartry Field (1977).Logic, Meaning, and Conceptual Role. Journal of Philosophy 74 (7):378-409 I 167 Conceptual Role/Schiffer: the conceptual role of an inner formula is then the complex counterfactual property of the formula, whose knowledge informs us about the conditions under which the formula occurs. Conceptual role instead of definition: with it, it is impossible to eliminate by paraphrase. - Then it is irreducible >controlled use! Schiffer: Thesis: simply conceptual role instead of platonist irreducible property e.g. of being a dog: cute hairy barking quadrupeds. Accordingly we need no primitive propositional attitude and no belief properties. Language development: proto-humans: have beliefs and desires, but no concepts for them - later God gives simple concepts for them (increases the survival value) - they are recognized as irreducible. I 169 Conceptual role: does not allow law-like generalization as e.g. x does A, because he wants P and believes that he achieves P if he does A - nevertheless there is reliability. >Intentionality, >Attribution, >Behavior, >Explanation, >Reliability theory. I 186 Conceptual Role/Schiffer: must be determined without reference to the truth conditions. >Truth conditions. It does not determine the truth conditions. Twin Earth: water and twin earth water have the same conceptual role. Use is synonymous to possession of a conceptual role. Internal language/Mentalese: here, the conceptual role is independent from reference. - Therefore no compositional semantics is assumed. This is not about situations, speech acts or utterances. |
Schi I St. Schiffer Remnants of Meaning Cambridge 1987 |
Fine-grained/ coarse-grained | Field | II 34 Fine-grained/Field: E.g. sets of possible worlds are coarser than possible belief objects: e.g. the axioms of set theory and the Banach-Tarski theorem (BTT, strongly counter-intuitive) are logically equivalent, i.e. valid in the same worlds. >Possible worlds, >Set theory. But the Banach-Tarski theorem is not believed by all the people who believe the axioms of set theory. Sentence meaning/Lewis: is fine-grained. >Sentence meaning, cf. >Word meaning. Belief/Lewis: what one believes, is coarse-grained. >Beliefs. Punch line: so the conviction is always the same: with and without Banach-Tarski theorem. II 35 FieldVsStalnaker: sets of possible worlds are too coarse-grained to distinguish beliefs. - E.g. set theory with and without Banach-Tarski theorem are the same. >Beliefs/Stalnaker. |
Field I H. Field Realism, Mathematics and Modality Oxford New York 1989 Field II H. Field Truth and the Absence of Fact Oxford New York 2001 Field III H. Field Science without numbers Princeton New Jersey 1980 Field IV Hartry Field "Realism and Relativism", The Journal of Philosophy, 76 (1982), pp. 553-67 In Theories of Truth, Paul Horwich Aldershot 1994 |
Foundation | Peacocke | I 199 Foundation/Peacocke: for each component of a thought it must be possible that it does not already come from other thoughts. >Thoughts, >Thinking, >World/thinking, >Thought objects, >Belief objects, >Reality, >Knowledge, >Perception. Problem: Radical holism/Dummett: if everything depends on other thoughts: then we get a circle. >Holism, >Circular reasoning. |
Peacocke I Chr. R. Peacocke Sense and Content Oxford 1983 Peacocke II Christopher Peacocke "Truth Definitions and Actual Languges" In Truth and Meaning, G. Evans/J. McDowell Oxford 1976 |
Grice | Schiffer | Avramides I 114 Grice/Schiffer: (= intention-based approach) Grice is obliged to deny logical functions of meanings. - Instead: dependence on a (causal) fact (which is non-semantically specified). >Intention-based semantics, >Facts, >Situations, cf. >Situation semantics. --- Schiffer I 13 Grice/Schiffer: Problem: the meaning must not determine the content. - Because semantic vocabulary must be avoided - therefore VsRelation Theory. The belief objects would have to be language independent. >Relation theory, >Objects of belief. I 241 Intention-based approach/Grice/Schiffer: works without Relation Theory and without compositional semantics. - Extrinsic explanation is about non-semantically describable facts of use. SchifferVsGrice: his theory has not enough to say about the semantic properties of linguistic units. I 242 Grice/Schiffer: (Grice 1957)(1): attempts to define semantic concepts of public language in terms of propositional attitudes (belief, wishing, wanting). With that nothing is assumed about the meaning itself. Def speaker-meaning/Grice: (1957)(1) Is non-circular definable as a kind of behavior with the intention to trigger a belief or an action in someone else. Def expression meaning/Grice: (1957)(1) that means the semantic features of expressions of natural language. - Is non-circular definable as certain types of correlations between characters and types of exercise of speaker-meaning. - Statement/extended: every act, that means something. >Speaker intention, >Speaker meaning. Schiffer: thus questions of meaning are reduced to questions about propositional attitudes. I 243 A character string has to have a particular feature, so that the intention is detected. >Intentions. I 245 Grice/Schiffer: Problem: Falsifying evidence is not a meaning-problem. Common knowledge is necessary, but always to refute by counter-examples. >Language community. Solution: to define common knowledge by counterfactual conditions. >Counterfactual conditional. Problem: not even two people have common knowledge. SchifferVsGrice: no one has set up a lot of reasonable conditions for speaker-meaning. Problem: a person can satisfy the conditions of (S) when he merely says that A intended to cause it, that A believes that p ((S) = lies). SchifferVsGrice: this approach is hyper-intellectual, presupposes too much intentions and expectations, that will never be divided. - The normal speaker knows too little to understand the expression-meaning by Grice. >Utterance meaning. I 247 E.g. I hope you believe me, but not on the basis of my intention. - A necessary condition to tell something is not a necessary condition to mean it as well. >Meaning/Intending. 1. H. Paul Grice (1957). Meaning. Philosophical Review 66 (3):377-388 |
Schi I St. Schiffer Remnants of Meaning Cambridge 1987 Avr I A. Avramides Meaning and Mind Boston 1989 |
Individuation | Castaneda | Frank I 216 Individuation/Castaneda: Thinking events are individuated by their contents. >Content, >Thought objects, >Belief objects, >Identification, >Thinking, >Thought, >Propositional content. Hector-Neri Castaneda (1989): Self-Consciousness, I-Structures and Physiology, in: Manfred Spitzer/Brendan A. Maher (eds.) (1989): Philosophy and Psychopathology, Berlin/Heidelberg/New York 1989, 118-145 |
Cast I H.-N. Castaneda Phenomeno-Logic of the I: Essays on Self-Consciousness Bloomington 1999 Fra I M. Frank (Hrsg.) Analytische Theorien des Selbstbewusstseins Frankfurt 1994 |
Mentalese | Peacocke | I 206 Mentalese/belief/Field/Peacocke: Field Thesis: systems that are sufficiently complex for belief terms, have systems of internal representations in which the sentence-analogues have significant grammatical structure. >Complexity, >Structure, >Systems, >Beliefs, >Thoughts, >Propositional Attitudes, >Thinking, >Representation, >Internal States, >Internal Objects, >Belief Objects, >Thought Objects, cf. >Artificial Intelligence. I 209 Mentalese/Peacocke: a model that works without the assumption of a language of thought would have to explain two things: 1. How can one ascribe propositional content, without referring to syntactic structures? - That means, relatively complex content must be attributed to syntactically unstructured (psychic) states. >Propositional content, >Content. 2. It must be shown, how these states interact with perception and behavior. >Perception, >Behavior. I 215 A simple model (relation instead of language) does not seem to require the instrumentalist conception of a rational actor. - On the contrary, if someone meets the relational model, a realism regarding mechanisms of rational belief-desire psychology would be justified. >Realism, >Rationality. |
Peacocke I Chr. R. Peacocke Sense and Content Oxford 1983 Peacocke II Christopher Peacocke "Truth Definitions and Actual Languges" In Truth and Meaning, G. Evans/J. McDowell Oxford 1976 |
Non-Existence | Montague | Hintikka I 103 Non-existence/not well-defined/HintikkaVsMontague: Montague's semantics does not allow the question of existence or non-existence to be meaningless because an individual is not well-defined in a world. ((s) Because in Montague the domain of individuals is assumed to be constant). >Possible worlds, >Identity between worlds, >Individual domain, >Identification, cf. >Counterparts, >Counterpart relation, >Counterpart theory. Individual domain/solution/Hintikka: we have to allow that the individual domain is not constant. But there is a problem: Quantification/belief context/existence/truth/Hintikka: in the following example we must presuppose existence so that the proposition can be true: (11) John is looking for a unicorn and Mary is looking for it, too. ((s) the same unicorn). Cf. >Thought objects, >Belief objects. Range/quantifier/Hintikka: in the only natural reading of (11) one has to assume that the range of the implicit quantifier is such that "a unicorn" has a wider range than "looks for". >Range, >Quantification, >Narrow/wide range. ((s) That is, that both are looking for unicorns.) Problem: how can one know whether both subjects believe in the same individual?). >Unicorn example. I 103 Existence/W-Question/Unicorn/Hintikka: nevertheless the example (11) shows that the way of reading should not oblige us to accept the existence of unicorns. Cf. >Ontological commitment. Non-existence/epistemic context/intensional/belief/Hintikka: it is obviously possible that two people can look for the same thing, even if it does not exist. Solution: We allow that well-defined individuals do not exist in some worlds. For this, only a slight modification is necessary. Problem: with more complex sentences, all problems come back: I 104 Example: John does not know whether unicorns exist, yet he is looking for a unicorn because Mary is looking for it. Problem: here John must be able to recognize a special unicorn. (Otherwise the sentence that uses "it" would not be true), although he is considering the possible non-existence. >Anaphora, >Index Words, >Indexicality, >Identification. World line/Hintikka: in order to extent the Montague semantics, we must allow more or less unnatural world lines. >World lines, cf. >Four-dimensionalism. |
Hintikka I Jaakko Hintikka Merrill B. Hintikka Investigating Wittgenstein German Edition: Untersuchungen zu Wittgenstein Frankfurt 1996 Hintikka II Jaakko Hintikka Merrill B. Hintikka The Logic of Epistemology and the Epistemology of Logic Dordrecht 1989 |
Opacity | Castaneda | Frank I 383 Referential opacity/opacity/Castaneda: Quine is concerned with the reference of the speaker (de re-aspects of communication) - I am concerned with the de dicto-aspects of thinking. >de re, >de dicto, >Thinking, >Reference, >Identification, >Thought objects, >Belief objects. Hector-Neri Castaneda (1987b): Self-Consciousness, Demonstrative Reference, and the Self-Ascription View of Believing, in: James E. Tomberlin (ed) (1987a): Critical Review of Myles Brand's "Intending and Acting", in: Nous 21 (1987), 45-55 James E. Tomberlin (ed.) (1986): Hector-Neri.Castaneda, (Profiles: An International Series on Contemporary Philosophers and Logicians, Vol. 6), Dordrecht 1986 |
Cast I H.-N. Castaneda Phenomeno-Logic of the I: Essays on Self-Consciousness Bloomington 1999 Fra I M. Frank (Hrsg.) Analytische Theorien des Selbstbewusstseins Frankfurt 1994 |
Possible Worlds | Castaneda | Frank I 329ff Possible world/Lewis: Possible world have only publicly accessible physical objects, no premises, no propositional knowledge, extensional (E.g. 2 omniscient Gods). >Two omniscient gods, >Possible worlds/Lewis, >Extensions, >Extensionality, >Propositions, >Propositional knowledge. CastanedaVsLewis: but private items and indicator phrases ("I", "here", "now") are individuable in possible worlds (intensional). >Intensions, >Intensionality. Lewis: if access to possible worlds is limited perspectively, then worse: we no longer know what we believe propositionally, because propositions would no longer be transparent as sets of possible worlds. >Accessibility, >Opacity. Frank I 357 Possible world/CastanedaVsLewis: not suitable as accusative of thinking: as sets too much extended - not intensional. >Content, >Thought objects, >Belief objects, >Thoughts. Hector-Neri Castaneda (1987b): Self-Consciousness, Demonstrative Reference, and the Self-Ascription View of Believing, in: James E. Tomberlin (ed) (1987a): Critical Review of Myles Brand's "Intending and Acting", in: Nous 21 (1987), 45-55 James E. Tomberlin (ed.) (1986): Hector-Neri.Castaneda, (Profiles: An International Series on Contemporary Philosophers and Logicians, Vol. 6), Dordrecht 1986 |
Cast I H.-N. Castaneda Phenomeno-Logic of the I: Essays on Self-Consciousness Bloomington 1999 Fra I M. Frank (Hrsg.) Analytische Theorien des Selbstbewusstseins Frankfurt 1994 |
Possible Worlds | Lewis | IV 147 Centered possible worlds/De re/de se/Quine/Lewis: (Ontological Relativity, Propositional Objects): E.g., A cat that is being chased by a dog wants to get onto the roof to be safe - de dicto: it wants a state that is the class of all possible worlds where it reaches the roof. Problem: cross-world identity: Question: which of the many counterparts in many possible worlds is the cat itself? Solution/Quine: centered world: Pairs of a world and a designated time-space point in it, the desired state is then a class of centered worlds - no centered world belongs to two classes (desired and dreaded possible worlds). >Centered world, >Counterpart/Lewis, >Counterpart relation/Lewis, >Counterpart theory/Lewis, >Identity across worlds. QuineVs: ultimately better divided theory: here are the objects of simple settings, classes of stimulus patterns that are more complex are linguistic. Property/Lewis: corresponds to a class of centered worlds, more specifically to a property of space-time points, but also a property of cats. IV 148 Possible world/Quine/Lewis: Lewis: large particulars (concrete) - Quine: abstract entities - certain classes of classes of quadruples of real numbers - (space-time points) - Stalnaker: pro Quine: corresponds better to our everyday language: What it could have been like. IV 149 Situation/Possible world/Lewis: Thesis: there can also be alternatives within a possible world - thus distinction situation/Possible world - LewisVsStalnaker: not propositions as belief objects (objects of desire) but attitudes de se - E.g. Lingens with memory loss finds out in the book that there are two people who could be identical with him - a) on the 6th floor at Stanford - b) in the basement of a different library 3km away - two possible situations (possibilities) in the same possible worlds - solution: property instead proposition - the propositions apply to both people in the same way. >Properties/Lewis, >Proposition/Lewis. --- V 42 Centering assumption/Possible world/Lewis: If it was violated, worlds that differed in a non-observed way would be considered to be the same as the actual world. V 262 Possible world/Equality/Identity/Lewis: it is an independent and difficult question whether two possible worlds that exactly match their history also match in all other aspects - e.g. in their probabilities, laws, modal truths, counterfctual conditionals. >Counterfactual conditional/Lewis. Lewis: this is not of interest here. Overall history/Supervenience: supervenes on the history of events, whatever else may in turn supervene on the overall history. >Supervenience/Lewis. --- Schwarz I 216 Possible world/Lewis: no set of ordinary sentences - of which there are not enough in the language. Lewis: counterparts, possible worlds are real (KripkeVs) (PutnamVs). --- Lewis I 59 Possible world/Lewis: you can speak pretty freely and metaphysically guileless and without special ontological reservations about possible worlds. --- II 214 Possible world save separation of object/meta languange - Truth and analyticity cannot be defined in the same language. II 214 Definition Possible World (VsLewis): The concept of a possible world can be explained even by recourse to semantic terms. Possible worlds are models of the analytical sentences of a language or diagrams or theories of such models. II 214 LewisVs: possible worlds cannot be explained by recourse to semantic terms. Possible worlds exist and should not be replaced by their linguistic representations. 1) Such a replacement does not work properly: two worlds that are indistinguishable in the representative language are (falsely) assigned one and the same representation. >ersatz world/Lewis. |
Lewis I David K. Lewis Die Identität von Körper und Geist Frankfurt 1989 Lewis I (a) David K. Lewis An Argument for the Identity Theory, in: Journal of Philosophy 63 (1966) In Die Identität von Körper und Geist, Frankfurt/M. 1989 Lewis I (b) David K. Lewis Psychophysical and Theoretical Identifications, in: Australasian Journal of Philosophy 50 (1972) In Die Identität von Körper und Geist, Frankfurt/M. 1989 Lewis I (c) David K. Lewis Mad Pain and Martian Pain, Readings in Philosophy of Psychology, Vol. 1, Ned Block (ed.) Harvard University Press, 1980 In Die Identität von Körper und Geist, Frankfurt/M. 1989 Lewis II David K. Lewis "Languages and Language", in: K. Gunderson (Ed.), Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. VII, Language, Mind, and Knowledge, Minneapolis 1975, pp. 3-35 In Handlung, Kommunikation, Bedeutung, Georg Meggle Frankfurt/M. 1979 Lewis IV David K. Lewis Philosophical Papers Bd I New York Oxford 1983 Lewis V David K. Lewis Philosophical Papers Bd II New York Oxford 1986 Lewis VI David K. Lewis Convention. A Philosophical Study, Cambridge/MA 1969 German Edition: Konventionen Berlin 1975 LewisCl Clarence Irving Lewis Collected Papers of Clarence Irving Lewis Stanford 1970 LewisCl I Clarence Irving Lewis Mind and the World Order: Outline of a Theory of Knowledge (Dover Books on Western Philosophy) 1991 Schw I W. Schwarz David Lewis Bielefeld 2005 |
Proper Names | Prior | I 119 ff Names/Hobbes: names are names of our ideas. >Th. Hobbes, >Ideas. MillVsHobbes: names convey to the others, what we think of someone (something), not only about our idea The idea of fire does not cause the heat, even though I must have terms to think. >Proper names/Mill, cf. >Connotation. I 158ff Name/existence/Prior: Vs the thesis, "Name is all what intends to identify a real object": Problem: indirect speech: E.g. The spokesperson believes Holmes exist, but the listener does not: then the speaker is in a position to identify Holmes the listener is not but then the listener cannot tell what the speaker has said (absurd). >Thought objects, >Belief objects, >Identification, >Individuation. I 168 Names/KennyVsRussell: there is a hideen description in "B exists". >Hidden descriptions. PriorVsKenny: when names must name something then no name can be used in indirect speech with a known non-existence. >Naming, >Non-existence, >Indirect speech. I 168ff Theory/PriorVsKenny: cannot set up his own theory. - Kenny Thesis: names must intend reference - then the theorist himself cannot even intend to use the name if he talks in his example sentences of non-existent persons. >A. Kenny. |
Pri I A. Prior Objects of thought Oxford 1971 Pri II Arthur N. Prior Papers on Time and Tense 2nd Edition Oxford 2003 |
Propositional Attitudes | Meixner | I 82 Proposition/Meixner: Propositional attitudes are satisfied by facts, not by propositions. >Propositions, >Propositional attitudes, >Intensions, >Facts, >States of affairs, cf. >Thought objects, >Belief objects, >Satisfaction. |
Mei I U. Meixner Einführung in die Ontologie Darmstadt 2004 |
Propositional Attitudes | Perry | Frank I 451f Proposition / propositional stance / PerryVsFrege: the expressions embedded in a report of what someone thinks, designate entities (not whole propositions) to which their antecedents relate. > Cresswell: structured meanings, >Propositions, >Designation, >Objects, >Indexicality, >Index words, >Identification, >Belief Objects, >Thought Objects, >Reference. John Perry (1983a): Castaneda on He and I, in: James E. Tomberlin (ed.) Agent, Language, and the Structure of the World: Essays Presented to Hector-Neri Castaneda. Hackett (1983), 15-39 |
Perr I J. R. Perry Identity, Personal Identity, and the Self 2002 Fra I M. Frank (Hrsg.) Analytische Theorien des Selbstbewusstseins Frankfurt 1994 |
Propositional Attitudes | Prior | I 88 Propositional attitudes/Prior: no distinction between what is said and what is meant: the object of fear is the object of fear and not a "next-intentioned" object. >Propositions, >Intensions, >Thought Objects, >Belief Objects, >Meaning/intending, >Sense. |
Pri I A. Prior Objects of thought Oxford 1971 Pri II Arthur N. Prior Papers on Time and Tense 2nd Edition Oxford 2003 |
Propositions | Castaneda | Frank I 323 Propositions/Tradition: (not represented by anyone in pure form, not even by Frege): ideal convergence of the elements of thought, speech, reality and communication. >Convergence, >Communication, >Thought objects, >Belief objects, >Content, >G. Frege. Propositions that are primarily defined as carriers of timeless truth values, fundamental support of linguistic meaning as constituents of reality and as publicly accessible contents of communication. >Propositions, >Communication, >Truth values. Advantage: that leaves no gap between the content of thought, and that to which it is directed - for reality arise. >Reference, >Reality, >World/Thinking. CastanedaVs: this does not apply to indexical sentences. >Indexicality, >Index Words. Individuation: of indexical sentences: in the speech act, not by meaning. >Individuation. I 340ff Proposition/Tradition: (Frege, Moore): 1) psychological units, 2) ontological, 3) ontologically objective (intersubjective) 4) metaphysical units 5) logical units 6) semantic 7) linguistic units of communication. CastanedaVs: there are discrepancies between 1 - 7 in the case of diachronic flow of experiences in the changing world. VsTradition: fails with indexical reference with "I", "here", "now". Problem: E.g. "I have 30 grams of nitrogen in my liver": understanding is possible without knowledge of the truth value. >Understanding, >Truth value, >Truth conditions. Therefore meaning unequal truth value (VsFrege) - what is meant by the formation of a sentence is not some objective feature or thing in the world that is accessible to everyone. >Meaning, >Meaning/Frege, >Fregean Sense, >Fregean meaning. Hector-Neri Castaneda (1987b): Self-Consciousness, Demonstrative Reference, and the Self-Ascription View of Believing, in: James E. Tomberlin (ed) (1987a): Critical Review of Myles Brand's "Intending and Acting", in: Nous 21 (1987), 45-55 James E. Tomberlin (ed.) (1986): Hector-Neri.Castaneda, (Profiles: An International Series on Contemporary Philosophers and Logicians, Vol. 6), Dordrecht 1986 |
Cast I H.-N. Castaneda Phenomeno-Logic of the I: Essays on Self-Consciousness Bloomington 1999 Fra I M. Frank (Hrsg.) Analytische Theorien des Selbstbewusstseins Frankfurt 1994 |
Propositions | Plantinga | Cresswell II 168 Def Propositions/Plantinga: propositions are no linguistic entities for Plantinga. Cf. >Thought content, >Thought objects, >Belief objects, >Mental states, >Thinking, >Thinking without language, >World/thinking, cf. >Intensions, >Propositional attitudes. |
Plant I A. Plantinga The Nature of Necessity (Clarendon Library of Logic and Philosophy) Revised ed. Edition 1979 Cr I M. J. Cresswell Semantical Essays (Possible worlds and their rivals) Dordrecht Boston 1988 Cr II M. J. Cresswell Structured Meanings Cambridge Mass. 1984 |
Ramsey Sentence | Pauen | Pauen I 131 Ramsey sentence/Pauen: assume a theory defining a series of theoretical terms of mental states m1 ... mn as "pain", "joy", "sadness" ... by reference to stimuli i1, ... ip and reactions o1 ... oq. The theory would thus have the form: T (M1. .. mn, i1 ... ip, o1 ... oq) - as Ramsey sentence we get, by combining all the propositions of the theory by conjunctions, makung up a single sentence. E.g. Ramsey sentence for the pain is: e x1 ... xn [T (x1. .. xn, i1 ... ip, o1 ... oq) & y has x2] - i.e. "a system y if and only if in the state x2 there are states in this system, which occupy the causal roles described in the theory T and y is in the second of these states" - avoids mentalistic terms. >Theoretical terms, >Reference, >Mentalism, >Mental states, >Mental objects, >Belief objects, >Thought objects, >Pain. |
Pauen I M. Pauen Grundprobleme der Philosophie des Geistes Frankfurt 2001 |
Semantics | Schiffer | I 13 Semantic Property/Schiffer: e.g. to have content. Truth theoretical property: to be true. I 14 Relation theories/intention bases semantics/i.b.s./Grice: Solution: semantic properties (s.p.) are permitted if they do not stem from the public language - then no circularity. Propositions: not-public. Sentences: public. I 221 Verificationist Semantics/Dummett/Schiffer: (not truth-conditional): Verification conditions instead of truth conditions. >Truth-conditional semantics, >Verification conditions. DummettVsDavidson: the meaning theory does not have to contain a truth theory. >Meaning theory/Davidson, >Truth theory. I 241 Intentionality/Semantics/Schiffer: semantic concepts can be defined in terms of propostional atittudes - but not vice versa. Schiffer:There are no propositional attitudes as belief properties or belief objects. >Belief properties, >Objects of belief. |
Schi I St. Schiffer Remnants of Meaning Cambridge 1987 |
Sugar Trail Example | Cresswell | II 183 Supermarket-Example/Sugar trail example/Perry/Cresswell: Perry Solution: Proposition/Perry: a set of triples of persons, times and worlds. Respectively as a function of people and times to sets of worlds. Problem: this proposition does not explain the stopping of the shopping cart! Solution/Lewis: the object of belief is not a sentence, but rather a property which is the meaning of "I m making a mess." (Self-attribution). >Belief objects, >Objects of thought, >Belief state/Perry. Boer/LycanVsLewis: self-ascription is an unclear term. >Self-ascription. |
Cr I M. J. Cresswell Semantical Essays (Possible worlds and their rivals) Dordrecht Boston 1988 Cr II M. J. Cresswell Structured Meanings Cambridge Mass. 1984 |
Thinking | Peacocke | Dum I 112 "Philosophy of thoughts"/Evans/Peacocke: Evans thesis: the language has no longer the basic position, - It deals with the problem of what it means to have a thought, and with the structure of thought and its components. What does it mean that a thought is about a subject of one kind or another? What does it mean to grasp a concept? What makes a term a component of a thought? >Thoughts, >Thought objects, >Belief objects. I 115 DummettVsEvans: dangerous to reverse the priority of language over the idea (risk of psychologism, when thoughts are subjective and incommunicable). >Psychologism, >Analytic philosophy/Dummett, >Language and thinking, >Thinking without language, cf. >Animal language, >Animals. |
Peacocke I Chr. R. Peacocke Sense and Content Oxford 1983 Peacocke II Christopher Peacocke "Truth Definitions and Actual Languges" In Truth and Meaning, G. Evans/J. McDowell Oxford 1976 |
Thoughts | Peacocke | I 129/130 Thoughts/Frege/Peacocke: Conditions for having a thought: i) the truth conditions must not be dependent on anything >Truth conditions. ((s) Otherwise the fuel gauge would have thoughts.) >Fuel gauge example. ii) Content must be indepented of propositional attitudes. >Content, >Propositional attitudes, >Thought objects, >Belief objects. |
Peacocke I Chr. R. Peacocke Sense and Content Oxford 1983 Peacocke II Christopher Peacocke "Truth Definitions and Actual Languges" In Truth and Meaning, G. Evans/J. McDowell Oxford 1976 |
Thoughts | Prior | I 3 Object of thought/Prior: a) Ryle: "accusative of belief": the proposition b) what we think of something, e.g. grass c) what we think about it. Predicate: predicares are is not "about". >"About", >Predicates, >Predication, >Intentionality, >Propositions, >Thinking, >Content. I 130 Thinking/object/Prior: one can know very well what it means to think of X without knowing whether X exists - even a third party can know what it is, that Y thinks of X without knowing whether X exists. >Thought objects, >Belief objects, >Non-existence, >Reference. Dilemma: a) thinking constitutes a relation between X and Y, but not if X does not exist. >Relation theory. b) thinking is the same, regardless of whether the object exists or not (Anscombe). >E. Anscombe. Prior: one has to be abandoned, but which one? |
Pri I A. Prior Objects of thought Oxford 1971 Pri II Arthur N. Prior Papers on Time and Tense 2nd Edition Oxford 2003 |
Truth | Ramsey | III 67 Truth/Ramsey: we cannot distinguish truth from falsehood if we only know what the word "true" means - true: we use the word a) for mental states b) for statements c) for "propositions" (as objects of belief). >Propositions, >Belief objects, >Thought objects. III 68 Truth/Ramsey/(s): Truth is not a property of sentences, but of meanings of sentences - (ultimately states of consciousness). >Sentences, >Utterances, >Meaning/Intending, >Speaker Intention, >Speaker Meaning, >Mental States, >Beliefs, >Beliefs. III 70 Truth/Ramsey: does not have to be well-founded or comprehensive. For example, true belief: the name of the Prime Minister starts with B - that is correct, even if false belief that Lord Birkenhead is the Prime Minister. Problem: the propositional reference of beliefs can be arbitrarily complex. We must avoid a list of truth definition for all individually - Solution: formalization: "p": a variable sentence - "A", "B": variable words (terms). Def true/Ramsey/logical form/Russell: B is true ⇔ (Ep)(B is a belief that p & p). Vs: Problem: "p" does not seem to contain a verb, but it should - Wrong solution: "is true" to add: circular. III 71 Solution/Ramsey. In reality, "p" contains a verb: e.g. "A is B". III 73 Truth/Ramsey. Example 1. the earth is round. 2. it is true that the earth is round, are equivalent, but 1 does not involve the idea of truth. Cf. >Redundancy theory. III 74 Truth without reference/Ramsey: Example "Belief at 10 o'clock": such a belief cannot yet be called true or false. >Sentences, >Statements. III 75 Truth/Ramsey: truth must be defined by reference, not vice versa. >Reference, >Truth definition. III 77 There cannot be any other kind of reference for true or false beliefs. Otherwise the future would be readable, from example "False reference" on tomorrow's rain. Therefore reference is simple, even if not unanalysable. Truth and reference are not independent expressions. >Simplicity, >Analysis, >Basic concepts. Truth must be defined by reference, not vice versa. >Dependence. |
Ramsey I F. P. Ramsey The Foundations of Mathematics and Other Logical Essays 2013 Ramsey II Frank P. Ramsey A contribution to the theory of taxation 1927 Ramsey III Frank P. Ramsey "The Nature of Truth", Episteme 16 (1991) pp. 6-16 In Theories of Truth, Paul Horwich Aldershot 1994 |
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Analyticity | Fraassen Vs Analyticity | EMD II 133 How-Question/Frege/Dummett: belongs to epistemology and not to theory of meaning. Sense/DummettVsFrege: this seems obvious at first glance. But if the meaning is not related to the method of verification, why does Frege not allow two analytically equivalent sentences to have the same sense? EMD II 134 Analyticity/FregeVsQuine/Dummett: He had a well-developed theory of analyticity. Whereas, if two analytically equivalent sentences may differ in sense, there is no criterion for identity. FregeVs/Dummett: Of course, if the concession were granted (which one?), it could not be maintained that the senses of sentences (the thoughts) are objects of beliefs. I.e. the sense is the reference of the propositional attitudes. DummettVsFrege: but this thesis itself requires the assumption that sense is connected to the way of knowing how or to the belief reasons. Question: Can we say that the sense only determines the object, i.e. the "what", or also the "how" or "why" it is believed? Problem: At first glance, the two are too closely interlinked to be seen individually. Why should two things A and B not have the same sense? The only possibility seems to be that X can believe (or know) one thing without believing (or knowing) the other (opaque context). What makes this at all possible is that the reasons of the expressions may be different. It follows that a difference in the reasons of expression includes a difference in the belief objects. II 135 DummettVsFrege: his fault is to have failed to insist that the theory of meaning must explain what manifests the recognition of the speaker. II 136 Theory of Meaning/MT/Verification/DummettVsFrege: a verificationist theory of meaning explains meanings in terms of the actual ability to recognize the truth of propositions. |
Fr I B. van Fraassen The Scientific Image Oxford 1980 EMD II G. Evans/J. McDowell Truth and Meaning Oxford 1977 Evans I Gareth Evans "The Causal Theory of Names", in: Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Suppl. Vol. 47 (1973) 187-208 In Eigennamen, Ursula Wolf Frankfurt/M. 1993 Evans II Gareth Evans "Semantic Structure and Logical Form" In Truth and Meaning, G. Evans/J. McDowell Oxford 1976 Evans III G. Evans The Varieties of Reference (Clarendon Paperbacks) Oxford 1989 |
Attribution Theory | Castaneda Vs Attribution Theory | Frank I 322 Attribution theory/Terminology/Castaneda: his expression of the theory of Chisholm/Lewis, self-attribution. Theory/Terminology/Castaneda: represents what he called dia philosophy: alternative theories can be evolved tgether. CastanedaVsChisholm: VsAttributionstheorie: does not explain sufficiently the explicit self-esteem (SB). I 323 "Unsustainable Fichteanism": Fichte: no consciousness without self-consciousness. I 329 Proposition/Belief/Sself-attribution/CastanedaVsAttribution theory/CastanedaVsLewis: 1) Lewis defines the belief objects extensionally (from quantities). This violates Castaneda’s second intentionality condition for the objects of intentional attitudes. (see above). Possible Worlds are unsuitable as primary objects of belief because of their infinite extension (infinitely many aspects) and properties cannot be individuated by sets of objects, because the creation of sets presupposes the predication of properties. (>Individuation). 2. Lewis’ thesis that self-attribution can be explained only by a non-propositional knowledge depends on the premise that there could be no indexical proposition or related related to private issues. CastanedaVsLewis: but it lacks a convincing justification. Hector-Neri Castaneda (1987b): Self-Consciousness, Demonstrative Reference, and the Self-Ascription View of Believing, in: James E. Tomberlin (ed) (1987a): Critical Review of Myles Brand's "Intending and Acting", in: Nous 21 (1987), 45-55 James E. Tomberlin (ed.) (1986): Hector-Neri.Castaneda, (Profiles: An International Series on Contemporary Philosophers and Logicians, Vol. 6), Dordrecht 1986 |
Cast I H.-N. Castaneda Phenomeno-Logic of the I: Essays on Self-Consciousness Bloomington 1999 Fra I M. Frank (Hrsg.) Analytische Theorien des Selbstbewusstseins Frankfurt 1994 |
Collins, A.W. | Fodor Vs Collins, A.W. | Cresswell II 157 Sentence/reason/mental object/Collins/Cresswell: (Collins 1979, 225f) thesis: sentences are mental particulars ((s) VsCompositionality). Problem: but everything that can have a truth value (true value) must be a universal. Mental Events/Collins: here we need temporality. Truth/Collins: the carriers of truth and falsehood need propositionality instead of temporality (CollinsVsFodor). Cresswell: this corresponds to Frege’s distinction between idea and thought. FodorVsCollins: Collins is right, but if we believe something, then there is a representation in us that has semantic properties. CresswellVsFodor: Fodor makes use of a confusion of object and content. Belief/relation theory/Fodor/Cresswell: his proof that belief is relational (1981, 178-181) is in fact a proof that "believes" relates a person with a content (not an object). Belief Object/Fodor/Cresswell: Fodor also has other arguments for belief objects. Object/Content/Cresswell: I just want to say that once this distinction has been made, it does not answer the question what the "content" is that objects are described (order/distinction: if A and B are different, a description of A does not help to understand B). II 159 Belief/Collins: (1979, 420): thesis: a belief can be no internal state, because if I want to find out if I believe p, this is indistinguishable from the procedure that I would use to determine p and different from the procedure I would use if I’m in a particular internal state or not. Semantics/stages/McGinn/Cresswell: McGinn (1982) thesis: semantics has several stages. Lately, this thesis has found several followers. Cresswell: this certainly involves a distinction between the object and content. Because then it is about two things: the explanation of truth conditions and the explanation of the role of linguistic thinking in our mental life. |
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 Cr I M. J. Cresswell Semantical Essays (Possible worlds and their rivals) Dordrecht Boston 1988 Cr II M. J. Cresswell Structured Meanings Cambridge Mass. 1984 |
Compositionality | Schiffer Vs Compositionality | I 220 SchifferVsCompositionality: my rejection is based all the time on the rejection of the theory of relations for belief. Here it is difficult to speculate about what kind of conditional sentences for "believes" would require a meaning theory that would not be a truth-theoretic semantics. How could such m.th. look like at all?. E.g. Conceptual Role Semantics: (Schiffer Vs: see section 4.3). Bsp Game Theoretical Semantics/game theory/Hintikka/Schiffer: (Hintikka 1982): this is not an alternative to the conventional theory. PeacockeVsHintikka: (1978) has shown that game theoretical rules provide corresponding truth-theoretical or model theoretical axioms. I XV SchifferVsCompositionality/SchifferVsFrege: natural languages do not have any compositional meaning theories (m.th.). I 137 Paul and Elmer/SchifferVsQuine: Quine: there are no countable belief objects. E.g. if John believes that snow is white, and Mary believes that snow is white, there must be something that both believe. Schiffer: this conditional is false: I 138 Either that or the alleged quantification through belief objects is not what it appears to be the Quine eye. I 144 SchifferVsQuine: harmless apparent quantification. SchifferVsCompositionality: we can now conclude that no natural language has a compositional truth-theoretic semantics (comp.tr.th.Sem.). Otherwise the theory of relations would be correct. In addition, it also has no compositional m.th. because then it has to be a compositional semantics. Understanding/SchifferVsFrege: So compositional semantics are not required to explain speech understanding! I 182 SchifferVsCompositional Semantics: it is false, even regardless of the falsity of the theory of relations of belief. ((s) Compositional Semantics/(s): does not consider the truth conditions but speaks only of the contributions of the meaning of words for the meaning of the proposition.) Schiffer. 1. t is not plausible that languages have a compositional truth-theoretic semantics unless it follows from the stronger assertion that they have compositional truth theories, which themselves are truth-theoretic. (> stronger/weaker; >Strength of Theories). I 192 SchifferVsCompositionality/public language/Mentalese/Schiffer: if I'm right, that no public language has a compositional semantics, I have to find a mistake in (U). It is not my goal to show that speech comprehension does not imply that the natural languages have compositional semantics, the explanation of our understanding would be an empirical task. I rather want to give a counter-E.g. VsCompositionality. E.g. (1) Harvey understands an indefinite number of new propositions of a language E1, which itself contains infinitely many propositions. (2) an explanation of his capabilities does not require compositional semantics. E1: is not a fully-developed natural language. I 193 Harvey: is in this considered possible world an information-processing machine that thinks in machine language: "M": Belief/conviction: Harvey has it if it is in a certain computational relation to an embodied (tokened) proposition of M. ((s) Mentalese: so there is still an internal relation to one's own thought language). B: is a box in Harveys head in which a proposition of M (tokened) exists exactly then when a token from the proposition occurs in B. (Assuming, Harvey has only a finite number of convictions). Belief: for each there is exactly one proposition in Mentalese whose occurrence in B realizes it. µ: is a formula in M so that Harvey believes that snow is white. Realisation/"meaning"/Schiffer: as propositions of M (machine language, Mentalese) realize belief, they also have ipso facto semantic or representational properties. Then it is fair to say that μ "means" that snow is white. And also, that a component of μ references as inner counterpart of the word to snow in the public language. I 195 Speech comprehension/Understanding/Schiffer: without compositionality: E.g. (Continuation: E1: spoken language (without ambiguity and indices) M: Mentalese for Harvey conceptual role: to explain the transition from (1) to (2). (and any others that correspond to it). Propositions in internal code: (or representations thereof: (3) Nemrac derettu "sum"-"sno"-"iz"-"pör-pol" ((s) English backward, [phonetic language], metalanguage (ML) and object language (OL) mixed) (4) Nemrac dias taht emons wons si elprup ((s) English backward, but explicit language, ML) and (5) Nemrac ecnarettu si eurt ffi emos wons si elprup ((s) ML and OL! "true" and "iff" in machine language, but without everyday linguistic meaning or "eurt" does not have to mean "true"! Conceptual role instead of meaning). I 196 Conceptual Role/c.r./SchifferVsCompositionality: we hereby show that "dias taht" and "eurt" can have conceptual roles that a) do not require any compositional semantics, b) explain the transition from one occurrence of (3) in Harveys B-Box to an occurence of (4) and (5) We do not need to specify the full meaning role! I simply assume that (4) and (5) have a role ("whichever"), which by virtue of their formula in Harvey triggers this belief. And none of this makes a compositional semantics necessary: Justification: E.g. you could just have a mapping relation for propositions between two different languages, with which a person who does not understand the other language, knows when a proposition of the other language is true. (…+…) I 200, 202f, 208. |
Schi I St. Schiffer Remnants of Meaning Cambridge 1987 |
Dennett, D. | Stalnaker Vs Dennett, D. | II 180 DennettVsSententialism/Dennett/Stalnaker: Vs propositions as belief objects. (relation theory). Solution/Dennett: "Organismic contribution" of the believer. Neutral with respect to the manner in which it is represented. Def notional attitude-Psychology/not. att./Dennett: (instead of propositional attitude) neutral in terms of the manner of representation. Defined in concepts of possible worlds (poss.w.), "notional worlds". Def prop att-psychology/Dennett: describes attitudes in concepts of wide content. Def sentential attitudes/sent. att./Dennett: syntactic, assumes Mentalese. Def notional world/Dennett: a fictional world that is constructed from a theorist as an external observer, II 181 to characterize the narrow attitudes of a subject. That means my twin on Twin Earth and I have the same notional world. Def narrow content/Dennett: is defined by a set of notional worlds that is the way in which a person who had actual world. notional world/Stalnaker: seem to be exactly the poss.w. that characterize the wide content in the psychology of propositional attitudes. StalnakerVsDennett: all poss.w. except one are fictitious – how can notional attitudes be different propositional attitudes. Why should not. att. be narrow and prop. att. wide? Narrow content/StalnakerVsDennett: are then according to Dennett simply propositions. The difference is neither to be found in the worlds themselves nor the nature of the content if both are just sets of poss.w.. The difference lies in the different responses of the two theories to the question by virtue of which fact someone has a conviction with this content. Propositional atitude-psychology/Dennett/Stalnaker: according to it contents are a function of relation to the actual world although the Twin-Earth-Example shows that they cannot be purely internal. Notional attitudes/not. att.-psychology/Dennett/Stalnaker: shall explain how purely internal (intrinsic) properties can pick a set of poss.w. that is different than the set that is picked by propositional attitudes. Wide content: e.g. O'Leary (correctly) thinks that there is water on the ground floor. This is wrong in the twin earth (tw.e.) because it is not water but XYZ. narrow content/solution: "water-like stuff". Dennett/Fodor/Stalnaker: we can compare both approaches: II 182 Narrow content/Fodor/Stalnaker: he changes the nature of the belief object, narrow contents are no longer propositions but functions of context on propositions. Narrow content/Dennett/Stalnaker: is for Dennett of the same kind as further content: both are propositions - function of poss.w. (=notional worlds) to truth values (tr.v.). What changed compared to the wide content is the relation between a believer in a proposition by virtue of which the proposition correctly describes the conviction. StalnakerVsDennett: but in addition he still has to explain how the purely internal (intrinsic) properties of the subject determine the narrow content. Solution/Dennett: e.g. Suppose we know all about the dispositions and skills of a subject but nothing about its causal history. Then that is similar as if we find an ancient object and ask what it was good for ((s)Cf. > Paul Valéry, find on the beach, objet ambigu). Dennett: then we imagine what it was ideally created for. In the notional world of an organism we imagine how the environment looks like to which it is best suited. Solution: propositions that are true in such possible worlds (poss.w.) will be the narrow content of the convictions of these subjects. StalnakerVsDennett: which is now not what we want: those poss.w. look more so that the desires and needs of the organisms in them are fulfilled and not that their propositions are true in them. E.g. it is not clear that the antelope with its properties to respond to lions is better off in a world of lions or in one without. It could then do a better job in terms of survival and to reproduce. Ideal/ideal environment/Dennett: could also be a very ugly poss.w. in which the organisms are, however, prepared to survive in it. II 183 StalnakerVsDennett: that is better, surely we try to cope with the world in which we think we live. But something is missing: a) many properties that enable organisms to survive, have nothing to do with their convictions, b) the fact that some counterfactual skills would help us to survive in a counterfactual poss.w. is not sufficient for saying that such a counterfactual possibility is compatible with the poss.w. which we believe to be the actual world. E.g. Suppose there are no real predators of porcupines in the actual world, they carry their spines simply like that. Then it would be unrealistic to artificially populate their notional world with predators. E.g. Suppose a poss.w. with beings who would like to eat us humans because of our special odor. Then we should not use such a poss.w. to characterize our convictions. Solution/Stalnaker: a belief state must serve in any way to be receptive to information from the environment and the information must have a role in determining behavior. StalnakerVsDennett: if we understand him like that we are still dealing with wide content. II 184 Representation system/Stalnaker: is then able to be used in a set of alternative internal states that are systematically depending on the environment. S1, S2,.. are internal states Ei: a state of the environment. Then an individual is normally in a state Si if the environment is in state Si. Representation: then we could say that the organism represents the environment as being in state Ei. Content: we could also say that the states contain information about the environment. Assuming that the states determine a specific behavior to adequately behave in the environment Ei. Belief state/BS: then we can say that these representations are likely to be regarded as a general type of BS. That is like Dennett understands narrow content. Problem/StalnakerVsDennett: 1. the description of the environment is not ascribed to the organism. 2. Information is not distinguished from misinformation (error, deception). That means if it is in state Si it represents the environment as in Ei being no matter if it is. Problem: the concept which originates from a causal relation is again wide content. Important argument: if the environment would be radically different the subject might otherwise be sensitive to it or sensitive to other features ((s) would reverse everything) or it would not be sensitive to the environment at all! narrow content/StalnakerVsDennett: problem: if the skills and dispositions of the organism are included in the descriptions of the content the actual world is initially essential. ((s) problem/Stalnaker/(s): how should we characterize their skills in a counterfactual poss.w.?) II 185 Dennett: if organisms are sneaky enough we might also here ascribe a narrow ((s) counterfactual) content. StalnakerVsDennett: I see no reason for such optimism. You cannot expect any information about virtual poss.w. expect when you do not make any assumptions about the actual world (act.wrld.) (actual environment). Ascription/content/conviction/belief/Stalnaker: in normal belief attributions we ignore not only fairytale worlds but in general all possibilities except the completely everyday! E.g. O’Leary: distinguishes only poss.w. in which the ground floor is dry or wet, II 186 not also such in which XYZ is floating around. Question: Would he then behave differently? Surely for olive oil but not for XYZ. Twin earth/tw.e./ascription: even if the behavior would not change in twin earth-cases, it is still reasonable not to ascribe tw.e.-cases. Context dependence/revisionism/Stalnaker: could argued that it is not twin earth but normal world which makes it unsuitable for scientific ascriptions. Dennett: stands up for his neutral approach (notional world). StalnakerVsDennett: nevertheless causal-informational representation is substantially relative to a set of alternative options (poss.w.). internal/intrinsic/causality/problem: the system of causal relations cannot itself be intrinsical to the representing. Theory: has admittedly a scope to choose between different possibilities of defining content II 187 StalnakerVsDennett: but there is no absolute neutral context without presuppositions about the environment. Narrow content/Dennett/Stalnaker: binds himself a hand on the back by forbidding himself the information that is accessible to wide content. StalnakerVsDennett: I believe that no sensible concept of content results from this restriction. II 238 Language dependency/ascription/belief/Stalnaker: this third type of language dependence is different from the other three. II 239 People must not be predisposed to express belief that type of language dependency at all. It may be unconscious or tacit assumptions. The content must also not involve any language. Dennett: e.g. Berdichev: we should distinguish simple language-specific cases - whose objects are informational states - from those, so propositions are saved - E.g. approval or opinions. StalnakerVsDennett: we should rather understand such cases as special cases of a more general belief that also non-linguistic beings like animals might have. |
Stalnaker I R. Stalnaker Ways a World may be Oxford New York 2003 |
Dummett, M. | Schiffer Vs Dummett, M. | I 221 Verificanistical semantics/Dummett/Schiffer: (not truth-theoretical): verification conditions instead of truth conditions. Dummett: (like Davidson): we must ask what form a meaning theory (m.th.) would have to take to find out what meaning is. This M.Th. should be able to specify the meaning of all words and propositions. (Dummett 1975, p. 97). Dummett: pro compositionality (with Wittgenstein): no systematic meaning theory is possible without explaining the understanding of infinitely many sentences. Therefore one must, like Chomsky and Wittgenstein, accept that we have an implicit capture some general principles. (Dummett 1978, p. 451). DummettVsDavidson: the meaning theory does not have to contain any truth theory (tr.th.). Verification condition/verification conditions/Dummett: (for propositions) the verification conditions are also recursively specified. Schiffer: but that does not follow that a compositional truth-theoretic semantics does not exist as well. I 222 Dummett: with the specification of the verification conditions the meaning theory could at the same time specify the truth conditions (Dummett 1978 Foreword). Verification conditions/SchifferVsDummett: it is not clear how the verification conditions should look like. Relation theory/meaning theory/Schiffer: when I argued VsRelation theory, I had a standard meaning theory in mind. The relation theory for belief is wrong when languages have no compositional truth-theoretical semantics (tr.th.sem.). Otherwise, it would be true!. Verificationist meaning theory/Verif. m.th./relation theory/Dummett/Schiffer: with a verificationist meaning theory could the relation theory maybe also be true?. I 225 Use theory/Dummett/Schiffer: for Dummett the point of use theory is: "the meaning of a word is uniquely determined by the observable characteristics of its linguistic use". (Dummett 1976, 135). SchifferVsDummett: but what counts as "observable characteristic" and what as "openly shown" ?. Does Dummett think that a description of the use in purely behavioral, non-semantic and non-psychological terms would be sufficient that a word has a specific meaning? That would be too implausible as that Dummett would accept that. Still, he notes that the description should not use any psychological or semantic terms. Meaning/Dummett/Schiffer: should therefore also become understandable for beings who have no semantic or psychological concepts themselves! So even for Marsians. (Also McDowell understands him like this, 1981, 237). McDowellVsDummett: according to Dummett it must be possible to give a description of our language behavior that is understandable for extraterrestrials. That does not work, because the intentional "(content-determining) is not reducible to the non-intentional. Content/McDowellVsDummett/SchifferVsDummett: is not detectable for extraterrestrials. ((s) Not "speechless", but only those who do not share our intentional vocabulary). I 226 Ad. 4: ("To know which recognizable circumstances determine a proposition as true or false"). Schiffer: that means how do we get from behaviorism to anti-realism?. Manifestation/SchifferVsDummett: this one makes do here even with pronounced psychological terms!. 1. Recognizing (that the conditions are met) is itself a form of knowledge, which in turn contains belief. You cannot describe that non-psychologically. 2. How can one then achieve the further conclusion that a purified attribution should ascribe a skill that can only be "openly shown"? (The showing understood behavioristically). Behaviorism/Dummett/Schiffer: However, I am not ascribing any behaviorism to Dummett, I ascribe him nothing, I just wonder what his position is. meaning theory/m.th./Dummett: thinks that natural languages have a m.th.! Their core will be recursively definable verif. cond.. Anti-Realism/Schiffer: here Dummett is uncertain whether the m.th. should have falsification conditions, but that will not affect my subsequent criticism. 1. Whether the knowledge that a state of affair exists, counts as verification of a proposition. I 227 Could depend on extralinguistic knowledge and not by the understanding of the proposition! We usually need background information. Understanding/SchifferVsDummett: then it should not be about verification conditions!. Direct verification conditions/Dummett: has to exist for each single proposition!. QuineVsDummett/Schiffer: (Quine 1953b): direct verification conditions cannot exist for every proposition. ((s) ~Theories are not verifiable proposition by proposition). 2. Surely there are meaningful propositions that have no recognizable conditions that would turn out this proposition as true or false. Dummett/Schiffer: insists, however, that a proposition must be shown as true or false and in fact "conclusively" (conclusive verifiability). (1978, 379). This leads to anti-realism. ((s) Def anti-realism/Dummett/(s): is exactly to demand that the verification must be performed in order to understand a proposition. The realism would waive the verification.) Anti-realism/Dummett: you still should not rely too heavily on the anti-realism! Because often a "conclusive verification" is not to obtain!. Schiffer: so Dummett itself holds the verification conditions contestable!. I 228 Pain/Verification/Wittgenstein/Dummett/Schiffer: Dummett quotes Wittgenstein with consent: that pain behaviors can be refuted. (Dummett 1978, S. XXXV) SchifferVsDummett: then the m.th. needs contestable criteria as well as contestable conditions!. Problem: this applies to most empirical judgments E.g. "That is a dog". 3. We know what kind of semantic values we must attribute to the non-logical constants (predicates and singular term) in the conditional sentences in a truth-theoretic semantics. But how shall that look like in the alternative with verification conditions instead of truth conditions?. Solution/Dummett: the verificationist semantics will make every predicate an effective means available, so that it can be determined for each object whether the predicate applies to the object or the singular term references to the object. I 230 Relation theory/SchifferVsDummett: the by me disapproved relation theory for propositional attitudes (belief as a relation to belief objects) seems inevitable for Dummett. ((s) because of the relation of predicates to objects to which they must apply verifiable). Problem: that can only happen in a finite theory, and for propositional attitude it would have to be infinite, because for each prop the VB would have to be found individually. Relation theory/Schiffer: has to assume propositional attitude as E.g. "believes that Australians drink too much" as semantically primitive - namely, 2-figure predicate between believer and content). |
Schi I St. Schiffer Remnants of Meaning Cambridge 1987 |
Functionalism | Schiffer Vs Functionalism | I XVII Functionalism/Schiffer: seems to be better than physicalism if propositions are assumed as belief objects. Belief relation: is represented functionalistically and thus physicalistically acceptable. SchifferVsFunctionalism: cannot be correct. SchifferVsPropositions. (late). |
Schi I St. Schiffer Remnants of Meaning Cambridge 1987 |
Grice, P.H. | Schiffer Vs Grice, P.H. | Avramides I 56 Deception/SchifferVsGrice: the recognition of the speaker's intention by the listener must at least partly be the reason for the reaction - Problem: distinguishing primary intention, "with" which something is expressed - secondary: "in" which something is expressed - primary intention to cause the reaction is important - secondary: E.g. "by expressing a, he means b" - primary/(s): "with a he means x". Avramides I 60 VsGrice: Counter-E.g.:examination, learning, memory, inference, reckless speech, indifference with respect to the listener reaction, accusation - solution / Grice: "active belief" or belief that the speaker believes .. "(= activated belief, not querying learning material) - SchifferVs: problem: speaker often intend no belief in the listener - problem: then the analysis is no longer enough - solution: for real communication is necessary that belief is not caused but justified. Schiffer I XIX Expression meaning/intention based semantics (IBS)/SchifferVsIBS/SchifferVsIntention based semantics/intention supported: not only requires compositionality and relation theory, but also implies that Understanding/IBS: Thesis: is an inferential process (conclusions) SchifferVs: that's dubious. This in turn requires propositional knowledge that one clearly does not have! ((s) in relation to or as a "belief objects"). SchifferVsGrice: so by that the whole project is brought into disrepute. I 248 Speaker Meaning/SchifferVsGrice: depends also from the fact that the speaker himself is willing to describe himself accordingly. And the complex conditions of (S) are just not realistic. They make each utterance to a falsehood when you replace "to mean" in each pattern by "to say". Paradox of the Analysis/Schiffer: revenges here: IBS can maybe say what meaning is but by that it does cover nobody's notion of meaning. The IBS-analysis cannot replaced its analysandum by a that-proposition on a propositional attitude. IBS/Schiffer: of course it is about an analysis of "S believes that p" and not of "x believes that S means that p". Nevertheless, this can be seen as an obstacle to a reductive analysis. E.g. "It is snowing": is irreducible semantically. Point: in the end we can omit all speaker intentions here! It is not of interest, if it does not help to deliver the base I 249 For the semantic features of the expressions of natural language. Expression Meaning/SchifferVsIBS/SchifferVsGrice: IBS has much to say about speaker-meaning, but too little (surprisingly little) about expression meaning. And for good reason, as we shall see. I 264 Schiffer: Thesis: ultimately it is the way in which we use signs and sounds - described non-semantic and non-psychological - which explains our semantic knowledge (given the conceptual roles of our neural terms). SchifferVsGrice: Problem: the fact remains that we cannot formulate this semantic knowledge in non-semantic terms. |
Schi I St. Schiffer Remnants of Meaning Cambridge 1987 Avr I A. Avramides Meaning and Mind Boston 1989 |
Kaplan, D. | Stalnaker Vs Kaplan, D. | I 206 Def character/Kaplan: (= proposition meaning): a function of context to content. Context/Stalnaker: can be represented as centered world (centered poss.w.). Centered world/centered possible world/ poss.w./Stalnaker: shall represent the context here. I 207 Content: is here represented by propositions Proposition: function of poss.w. to truth values. Character/Kaplan/Stalnaker: is then a two-dimensional intension. (Kaplan 1989b) StalnakerVsKaplan: this paradigm does not answer the questions of basic semantics to the facts that determine the semantic values. It belongs to the descriptive semantics. That means it is not a theory on the interpretation of thoughts. Thoughts/interpretation/Stalnaker: is a question of basic semantics that means of the facts. Character/content/Kaplan/Stalnaker: the original motivation for the separation was that sentence meanings do not represent the expressed thoughts. Content/Stalnaker: = secondary intension. Content/Kaplan: that what is being said. The thought, the information that the speaker intends to transmit. I 208 Solution/StalnakerVsKaplan: Kaplan's approach must be expanded by a theory of thoughts and a language theory. This allows us to treat a wider domain of expressions as context-dependent than normally. II 5 Double indexing/double index/Kaplan/Stalnaker: (Kaplan Demonstratives, 1968): thesis: 1. a) the meaning of a proposition determines the content relative to the context but b) the content determines a truth value only relative to a poss.w. Stalnaker: so Kaplan's theory was two dimensional or double indicated. Context/Kaplan/Stalnaker: was represented by an index like the one of Montague and propositions were interpreted relative to this index Content/Kaplan/Stalnaker: the actual values of the interpretation function were then, however, the contents and not the truth values, while Def content/Kaplan: a function of poss.w. on truth values. 2. Kaplan second modification: Index/Kaplan/Stalnaker: was limited: Index/Montague/Stalnaker: only a list of time, speaker, place, maybe poss.w.) Index/Kaplan: only: the relations between these must also be considered. That means an index can represent the content only when the agent is actually at the location in the poss.w.. II 6 Context dependence/Stalnaker: is, however, pervasive: adjectives like e.g. "large" are interpreted relative to contextually specific comparison classes. Likewise e.g. "I", "here", "now" (index words). StalnakerVsKaplan: Kaplan (1968) says nothing about this. II 10 Character/Kaplan/Stalnaker: Kaplan was about proposition types. Propositional concept/p.c./StalnakerVsKaplan: are, however, associated with certain statement tokens. This p.c. is dependent on the semantic properties that these tokens have in the poss.w. in which they occur. This is no contradiction to Kaplan's and my theory. It is simply about different issues. II 162 de re/belief/ascription/Kaplan/Stalnaker: ("Quantifying in", 1969) Kaplan has an intermediate position (between Quine and Stalnaker): Ascription/Kaplan: (like Quine) is not ascribed to a certain conviction. de re/logical form/Quine/Kaplan: de re-ascription: existence quantification. Truth conditions/tr.c./de re/KaplanVsQuine/Stalnaker: here Kaplan follows the semantic approach: ascriptions de re are only then true if the believer has to be in a relation with the knowledge. Intensification: the name must denote the individual. E.g. "a is a spy": here a must not only denote Ortcutt, but there are additional conditions 1. for the content 2. for the causal relation between the name, the individual and the believer. Pointe/Stalnaker: it is still possible that all the conditions are fulfilled by two different names. Thus, the examples can be described without having to ascribe conflicting belief. KaplanVsQuine/Stalnaker: his approach also covers cases in which Quine's analysis was too liberal. StalnakerVsKaplan: his approach is an ad hoc compromise. Knowledge/ascription/Stalnaker: in the semantic analysis knowledge is self-evident without it you cannot believe anything. You cannot believe a proposition without having detected the expressions occurring in the concepts in which they are defined. StalnakerVsKaplan: 1. but the need for knowledge loses its motivation when it is grafted to Quine's approach. 2. Kaplan keeps the artificial assumption that de re-ascriptions ascribe no particular belief and he is bound to the sententialism (propositions as belief objects). II 163 At least it have to be proposition-like objects with name-like constituents. de re/ascriptoin/belief de re/StalnakerVsQuine/StalnakerVsKaplan/Stalnaker: thesis: we instead accept propositions as sets of poss.w.. |
Stalnaker I R. Stalnaker Ways a World may be Oxford New York 2003 |
Lewis, D. | Castaneda Vs Lewis, D. | Frank I 329 Proposition/Belief/Self-attribution/CastanedaVsAttribution theory/CastanedaVsLewis: 1) Lewis defines the belief objects extensionally (from quantities). This violates Castaneda’s second intentionality condition for the objects of intentional attitudes. (see above). Possible Worlds are unsuitable as primary objects of belief because of their infinite extension (infinitely many aspects) and properties cannot be individuated by sets of objects, because the creation of sets presupposes the predication of properties. (>Individuation). 2) Lewis’ thesis that self-attribution can be explained only by a non-propositional knowledge depends on the premise that there could be no indexical proposition or related related to private issues. CastanedaVsLewis: but there is no convincing justification for that. Possible world/CastanedaVsLewis: considers it conceivable that a possible world does not only consist of public physical objects, but also contains subjective referees like I representations and indexical representations. This world could then also include its subjectively colored ways of the circumstance (intension). Then a subject that knows all the propositions would also be able to recognize its own position (propositional knowledge). I 356 Propostional knowledge/Lewis: E.g. "Two omniscient Gods": (slightly abridged original quote): they are omniscient, because they know every proposition. But I can imagine that they suffer from one ignorance: neither of them knows which one he is. There is nothing else to know, they would merely attribute more of the properties they have to themselves. He has this property and his world comrade does not have it, so the self-attribution of this property does not depend on him knowing which one is his world. Thesis: sometimes there are property objects, while propositional objects are not available. Some beliefs and some knowledge cannot be understood as propositional, but can be understood as self-attribution of properties. CastanedaVsLewis: that depends on the relevant meaning that one associates with "property" and "proposition". Therefore, he defines them in his spirit, and creates counter-intuitive premises. I 358 6) CastandedaVsLewis: It also does not readily apply that perceptual knowledge is not propositional. To the extent that demonstrative references take place, it is about the question of whether possible worlds contain volatile and private particulars. 7) the idea that Is, nows and this’s are objects of private knowledge is well founded. CastanedaVsLewis: but they do not have to be inexpressible. It is just the function of quasi indicators to capture the indexical references of other persons by means of interpersonal and non-volatile references. Hector-Neri Castaneda (1987b): Self-Consciousness, Demonstrative Reference, and the Self-Ascription View of Believing, in: James E. Tomberlin (ed) (1987a): Critical Review of Myles Brand's "Intending and Acting", in: Nous 21 (1987), 45-55 James E. Tomberlin (ed.) (1986): Hector-Neri.Castaneda, (Profiles: An International Series on Contemporary Philosophers and Logicians, Vol. 6), Dordrecht 1986 |
Cast I H.-N. Castaneda Phenomeno-Logic of the I: Essays on Self-Consciousness Bloomington 1999 Fra I M. Frank (Hrsg.) Analytische Theorien des Selbstbewusstseins Frankfurt 1994 |
Loar, B. | Schiffer Vs Loar, B. | I 274 Belief/Loar:/Schiffer (1981): ingenious theory about the thesis: belief is a relation in the public language of the ascribing, but in which the semantic properties that determine the content, are not defined in the public language, but in the Tarski-style. I 275 Tarski-style/T-Def/Schiffer: is not of any role of (translation: prescinds from any role) that can have the expression in the communication: if "T" is defined for a language, then contains [s is T] nothing about the use of s in any population of speakers. (Tarski 1956). I 15 Individuation/Belief/Loar/Schiffer: Loar's view makes it necessary that convictions based on interpersonal attributable functional states are individuated. ((s) So actually incompatible with Tarski). SchifferVsLoar:: (see below): which is not likely to go. That leaves as the only way: (see above). a) (compatible with IBS (intention based semantics): the local (topical) thesis that belief is a relation to a mental representation (in Mentalese). That 1. the content of signs and sounds must be reduced to contents of mental states (i.e. their intentional properties that are attributed to that-propositions). 2. then the contents of mental states are reduced to semantic properties of non-public language of mental representations that realize these mental states. ((s) representations implement mental states). Non-public language/Problem: the semantic properties of the non-public language of formulas in the inner system are contingent (!) properties! That means they require a theory that tells us what the truth conditions intends for sentences in Mentalese. This is a difficult legacy. Belief/Schiffer: but must be able to be explained without psychological vocabulary. (see above). ((s) representations/Schiffer/(s): must be explained in a non-public language, or the declaration itself in a public language, but as a phenomenon must be recognized that their contents are determined in a non-public language. (Non-public: E.g. attribution of truth values, but also Mentalese, content of mental states, etc.). I 34 SchifferVsLoar/SchifferVsFolk psychology: there are not nearly enough M-restrictions in a possible folk psychology, that by definition must be accessible to everybody, E.g. the belief that New Zealand is not a dictatorship: with which "observation moderate belief" (or amounts of such) is this belief to be connected via M-restrictions?. SchifferVsFolk psychology: they can not afford the functionalist reduction. I 45 Belief/Proposition/Loar/Schiffer: (Loar, 1981) began with propositions of belief objects, but then showed how it manages without the benefit of linguistic entities. SchifferVsLoar: 1. gives no completely general proposal. Its only meta condition is supplied from a common sense theory which is applicable only to normal adults. I 46 Problem: it is a consequence of Loar's theory that E.g. the predicate "believes that the New Yorker publishes Ved Metha" in my idiolect is partially defined by a common sense theory, which is incorrect for the blind and therefore, as I use the predicate, the proposition "Ved Metha believes that the New Yorker publishes Ved Metha" cannot be correct, because Ved Metha is blind. 2. Loar's theory is not immune to twin-earth examples and Burges examples. (He is aware of that). |
Schi I St. Schiffer Remnants of Meaning Cambridge 1987 |
Mentalesese | Stalnaker Vs Mentalesese | II 234 Semantic structure/belief/Stalnaker: beliefs can also be about semantic structure or about internal or external representations with a semantic structure. You can believe that a belief has a certain semantic structure II 235 without assuming a certain truth value of this belief! Semantics/belief/belief ascription/Stalnaker: why is semantic knowledge or lack of knowledge relevant to the problem of belief objects? Informational content: e.g. M and N have the same informational content. Suppose x believes M but not N. Solution/Stalnaker: then it must be the way that x either does not know what content M has or does not know what content N has. And that is purely semantic information. Information/content/belief/Stalnaker: thesis: so there must always be a difference in the information not only in the way the content is saved. (> StalnakerVsMentalese, ((s) > hyperintensionality: this concept is here not used by Stalnaker.). Since the believer precisely distinguishes between M and N a (semantic) information about the difference between necessary equivalent statements must be available to him! Semantic knowledge: is in simple cases obvious. E.g. if O’Leary does not know that 12 = a dozen (Stalnaker: a fortnight = 14 days) then he is missing information on the semantic value of certain words. ((s) Semantic value/Stalnaker/(s): e.g. the semantic value of "a dozen" is twelve pieces. (or a fortnight = two weeks). |
Stalnaker I R. Stalnaker Ways a World may be Oxford New York 2003 |
Moore, G.E. | Cartwright Vs Moore, G.E. | Horwich I 45 Correspondence theory/CartwrightVsmoore: Problem: there is also a property of coincidence (correspondence) which does not have the false proposition. And that seems to depend undeniably on the world! On a fact. Fact: the proposition is true if it is a fact that there are subways in Boston, otherwise it is false. CartwrightVsMoore/CartwrightVsRussell: it is precisely this which the theory of truth ignores as a simple, unanalysable property. But both were aware of this. ("Meinong Theory", p 75). They stuck to it, because: RussellVsCorrespondence theory, MooreVsCorrespondence theory. I 47 Fact/True proposition/Moore/Cartwright: (Moore: Some Main P, pp 262): seems to have explained his former theory wrongly there: Tact/MooreVsMoore: (late): does not consist in a proposition having a simple property while remaining the same, regardless of whether it is true or false. Even if we concede the existence of propositions. The relation of the proposition to the fact is not simply that the proposition is a constituent of the fact, one of the elements of which it is composed. Moore/Cartwright: otherwise, one would have to say that E.g. the fact that lions exist was a fact about the proposition that lions exist. But how is this relevant for Moore’s earlier theory? Because that was not what it was about, but rather that the fact that lions exist simply is the proposition. (Moore, early: fact = true proposition, not part of it) The simple property (truth) is possessed by the proposition itself. I 48 Anyone who believes that the proposition that lions exist is true, believes the corresponding proposition. The fact here is that the proposition is true. Fact/Moore: (early): consists in that the proposition possesses the simple property of truth. Fact/Moore/late: (Some Main P, misrepresenting his earlier theory): now consists in the possession of the truth (simple property) by the proposition. Important argument: then there is no identity fact = true proposition: because identity does not consist in itself having a property. ((s) A does not consist of the fact that A has the property F,> consist in, consist of, identity). Moore/Cartwright: the time of "Some Main .." he had come to the view that the relation theory of beliefs (acceptance of belief objects) is inconsistent with the identification of facts with true propositions. Now a relation was searched rather than the identity and his solution was the relation of "consisting in": Def Fact/Moore: (Some Main Problems): consists in the possession of truth by the proposition. (still simple property). CartwrightVsMoore: he saw himself that this was not very successful: there are facts that do not consist in a proposition having a certain simple property. CartwrightVsMoore: worse: once facts and propositions are distinguished, no simple property (truth) is needed anymore. Instead, we now have facts as the corresponding ones! It was precisely this inability to distinguish propositions and facts that had led Moore and Russell to the theory of truth as a simple unanalysable property!. Fact/Proposition/Moore/Cartwright: what had led Moore to start believing that propositions and facts cannot be identified?. I 49 E.g. Suppose Brown believes that there are subways in Boston. Moore/Russell/early: then there is a corresponding proposition that Brown believes. Problem: even if the belief had been wrong, Brown would have needed a faith object. Because what someone believes cannot depend on its truth!. So the believed proposition is definitely in the universe. But if the proposition is false, there is no corresponding fact in the universe. So propositions cannot be identical with facts. Ayer: this is a compelling argument. Cartwright: but for me it does not refute the early theory!. Russell/Moore/Early/Cartwright: sure, if something is true of a proposition, and it is not true of the corresponding fact, then proposition and fact are not the identical. But is this case given here? According to the early theory, the proposition would be in the universe anyway, even if it were wrong. Question: Is Moore right to say that the same does not apply to the fact? CartwrightVsMoore: it is not obvious that if the belief, e.g. that there are underground trains in Boston, was wrong, it would be necessary that something that actually exists in the universe, (namely that there are underground trains in Boston) would then be missing in the universe. Surely it would not be fact, but that does not mean that an entity would be missing if the belief had been wrong. I 50 Analogy: e.g. there is someone in the universe who can be correctly described as the author of Word and Object (namely Quine). Now, it could easily have been the case that Quine had not written the book. But that would not require Quine (= author of W + O) to not exist in the universe! E.g. Someone else might also have written the book. Furthermore, all persons who actually are in the universe, would not have had to be in the universe. Moore/Early/Cartwright: According to Moore’s earlier theory one might have thought that by analogy, something could also be in the universe that is "correctly described" with that there are underground trains in Boston, which, in the case that there were no underground trains in Boston, would not be a fact. That is wrong because of the false analogy between people and abstract belief objects). CartwrightVsMoore: (early): a follower of the early theory would have expressed the true same proposition with the following two sentences: (3) The fact that there are underground trains in Boston would not have had to be the fact that there are underground trains in Boston. and (4) The author of Word and Object would not have had to be the author of Word and Object. CartwrightVsMoore: (early): With that he would have assumed that "the fact that" would have been a rigid designator. |
Car I N. Cartwright How the laws of physics lie Oxford New York 1983 CartwrightR I R. Cartwright A Neglected Theory of Truth. Philosophical Essays, Cambridge/MA pp. 71-93 In Theories of Truth, Paul Horwich Aldershot 1994 CartwrightR II R. Cartwright Ontology and the theory of meaning Chicago 1954 Horwich I P. Horwich (Ed.) Theories of Truth Aldershot 1994 |
Perry, J. | Stalnaker Vs Perry, J. | II 21 Ascription/attribution/belief attribution//propositional knowledge/index words/Heimson/Stalnaker: generally two questions have to be distinguished: 1. What is the content of belief? 2. What is the nature of the relationship between the believer and the content? The crucial indexical element lies in the answer to the second question. Solution/calibration/Stalnaker: the possible situations must be "calibrated": that means time and place have to be specified. ((s) Thus, the sets of possible worlds (poss.w.) are restricted). Solution/Perry/Stalnaker: Perry distinguishes belief state and belief content. Content/StalnakerVsPerry: but this one has a different concept of content. His term does not reflect adequately the informational content of convictions. II 147 StalnakerVsPerry/Perry/Stalnaker: Belief state/Perry/Stalnaker: this one distinguishes it from belief content (content) Informational content/content/StalnakerVsPerry: with this distinction the informational content is not displayed correctly. Index words/Perry/Stalnaker: are part of the information, not part of the means of representation. II 148 Belief object/information/StalnakerVsPerry: problem: if the index words are part of the information its belief objects cannot be the informational content (or information). E.g. Ortcutt/Lingens: although according to Perry the content of the proposition "You are Rudolf Lingens" and the expressed belief and the one of the proposition "I am Rudolf Lingens" are the same this common content can, however, not be identified with the information! Common content/content/Perry/Stalnaker: according to Perry the common content is namely "Lingens is Lingens". Problem: Lingens believed that already earlier ((s) even without knowing that he himself is Lingens). Solution/Perry/Stalnaker: he believes it now in a new way. That means he is in a new belief state. ((s) Perry like Frege: way of givenness). Belief state/informational content/StalnakerVsPerry: belief states are too subjective to represent informational content because the relevant counterpart of Ortcutt is different to Lingens' belief state in which he is put by Ortcutt's information. Content/Perry: = belief object. Belief object/content/StalnakerVsPerry: Perry's belief objects are too extensional to capture the information which is delivered during communication. We need an intermediate concept: II 149 Solution/Stalnaker: proposition as intermediate concept between belief state and belief object: Proposition/Stalnaker: divides the set of possible worlds (poss.w.) (here: possible situations) into two subsets, the ones in which the proposition is true and the ones in which it is false. Belief object/Stalnaker: propositions as b.o. can reconcile the traditional doctrines (see above) with the examples for essential indexical belief. This is a more natural access than that of Perry and Lewis. |
Stalnaker I R. Stalnaker Ways a World may be Oxford New York 2003 |
Physicalism | Schiffer Vs Physicalism | I XVIII VsPhysicalism: (8th hypothesis) cannot be correct: E.g. if it is a fact that I believe that worms do not have noses, then that is not represented in non-Mentalese and non-intentionalistic vocabulary. Problem: what can you do? we accept Eliminativism: Thesis: We have no belief with meaning or words with meaning. Or Mentalism: Thesis: belief objects as internal entities (QuineVsMentalismus: Z "Sargasso Sea above which somebody slides obliviously). (> Dualism) . Nominalism/solution/Schiffer: we need to accept none of them: but we deny that the existence of language-independent, objective characteristics of belief. That means Belief/nominalism/Schiffer: denies that the characteristics of belief are to believe "this and that" or to be a belief that this and that is the case, and he also denies the facts. Nominalism/Schiffer: allows then to include both: ontological physicalism: there are no extra-linguistic irreducible psychological entities and the Def Sentential Dualism: that there are true but irreducible belief-ascribing propositions. Schiffer: pro. Here the token token physicalism (6th hypothesis) is tentatively accepted. >Kripke: Paradox of rule following, >Kripkes Wittgenstein, (1982). I 144 SchifferVsPhysicalism: it must be wrong, because thesis: if there is true attributions of belief, they cannot be shown without Mentalese or intentional vocabulary. |
Schi I St. Schiffer Remnants of Meaning Cambridge 1987 |
Possible Worlds | Stalnaker Vs Possible Worlds | I 49 Possible world/poss.w./knowledge/mathematics/StalnakerVsLewis/Stalnaker: I am inclined to say that the poss.w.-theory makes assumptions about the nature of their properties that are - unlike the corresponding assumptions of mathematical platonism - incompatible with the representation of the connection between the knowledge subjects and their objects in the case of poss.w.. poss.w./MR/VsModal realism/knowledge/verificationism/StalnakerVsLewis: the modal realist cannot cite any verificationist principles for what he calls his knowledge. Conclusion: problem: the MR cannot on the one hand say that poss.w. things are of the same kind as the actual world (contingent physical objects) and say on the other hand that poss.w. are things of which we know by the same kind like of numbers, sets, functions. ((s) Namely no real existing things.). I 53 StalnakerVsLewis: he contradicts himself because his other thesis about poss.w. about which we can have substantial beliefs contradicts his definition of content (see above). I 58 Contradiction/Lewis: there is no object howsoever fantastic about which one could tell the truth by contradicting oneself. Footnote: Takashi YagisawaVsLewis: why not? What should you expect otherwise? Impossible things are impossible. II 20 Belief ascription/solution/Stalnaker: I always wonder how the poss.w. would be according to what the believer believes. E.g. Pierre: for him there are two cities (Londres and London) E.g. Lingens in the library: for him there are two men, one named "Lingens" about which the other reads something. Relations theory/RelTh/Stalnaker: this can reconcile with the assumption that propositions are the belief objects. (Team: Stalnaker pro Relations theory? (1999)) Index/belief/Stalnaker: nevertheless I believe that convictions have an irreducible indexical element. Solution/Lewis: sets of centered poss.w. as belief objects. StalnakerVsLewis: although I have accepted that such poss.w. then include a representation of the mental state of the believer. But that is not what it is about! It is not sufficient that poss.w. that are compatible with one's convictions then include a person who has these convictions (> e.g. Lingens), the believer must identify himself with the person who has this thought! Proposition/identification/self-identification/Stalnaker: I am not suggesting that this identification is fulfilled by the belief in a proposition. I now think that this is not at all about some kind of cognitive performance. Indexical conviction/Stalnaker: (E.g. Perry: memory loss, library, e.g. Lewis: 2 gods (2 omniscient gods, e.g. Castaneda: memory loss): indexical unknowing. Stalnaker: thesis: people do not differ in what they believe. II 21 E.g. O'Leary knows that he is in the basement and that Daniels is in the kitchen. And Daniels knows the same thing: that he is in the kitchen and O'Leary in the basement. Everyone knows who and where he is and who and where the other is. The poss.w. that are compatible with the convictions of the two are the same. They argue about nothing. Yet there is an obvious difference in their doxastic situation: O'Leary identifies himself with the one in the basement and Daniels identifies himself as one who is in the kitchen. poss.w. semantics/StalnakerVsPossible worlds semantics/Stalnaker: this difference in the belief states of the two is not reflected by a set of poss.w. as belief state. Solution/Lewis: self-ascription of properties, or - equivalently - sets of centered poss.w.. StalnakerVsLewis: I do not want that. StalnakerVsLewis: problem: it is wrong to treat the difference in perspective as a dispute (disagreement). The two argue about nothing. Problem: it is not sure if one can express their agreement with the fact that the set of their uncentered poss.w. is the same. Because E.g. Heimson/Perry/Stalnaker: (Heimson believes "I am David Hume") all his impersonal beliefs about Hume are correct. Suppose they are the same convictions as the convictions of Hume about Hume. Stalnaker: nevertheless it would be wrong to say that they argue about nothing. ((s) unlike O'Leary and Daniels). II 134 Localization/space/time/self-localization/logical space/Lewis/Stalnaker: logical space/Lewis/Stalnaker: set of poss.w. from which one selects one. Self-localization/physical: in space and time. We usually know where we are. ((s) but we never know all poss.w. in which we could be localized, we cannot distinguish all poss.w. because we do not know everything). Gods example/Stalnaker: the two know exactly where they are in the logical space. II 135 But they do not know where within this poss.w. they are. LewisVsTradition: the doctrine of the proposition is focused only on one of the two types of localized belief. Generalization: is what we need and for that the transition from propositions to properties (as belief objects) serves. II 144 Gods example/Stalnaker: this is also a case of unknowing, which of two indistinguishable poss.w. is actual. One is actually the actual world while the other exactly the sam, with the exception that the god who sits in the actual world on the highest mountain is this time sitting on the coldest mountain and in fact with all the properties that the god on the highest mountain actually has. ((s) two individuals change places but keep all the properties. This is only possible if localization is not a property) Omniscience/Stalnaker: then you have to say, the two gods are not really omniscient regarding propositions, but rather omniscient in relation to purely qualitative criteria. LewisVsStalnaker: Lewis rejects this explanation for two reasons: 1. because he represents the counterpart theory (c.th.) that makes the cross world identity superfluous or meaningless. 2. even without counterpart it would not work because Assuming that the two gods of world W have traded places in world V assuming the god on the highest knows that his world is W, not V. Assuming he is omniscient with respect to all propositions not only the qualitative propositions. II 145 V: the world V cannot be relevant because he knows that he does not live there. Problem: there are still two mountains in a poss.w. W where he after all what he knows can live. StalnakerVsLewis: that does not answer the question: you cannot simply stipulate that the God in W knows something and not V. Because after the explanation we proposed that leads to the fact that he knows on which mountain he lives. Lewis/Stalnaker: his explanation is plausible if one conceives it as a metaphor for a location in the logical space: logical space/Lewis/Stalnaker: assume that a map of the logical space divided into large regions match the poss.w. and in smaller subdivisions represent the locations within poss.w.. Important argument: then we can tell someone in which large region he is without telling him exactly where he is located in it. Modal Realism/MR/logical space/Stalnaker: for him this image might be appropriate. Actualism/logical space/localization/Stalnaker: for the actualism this image is misleading: to know in which country you are is different to know where in the country you are but it is not so clear that there is a difference between the fact that one knows anything about in which poss.w. one is and knowing which poss.w. is the actual. Lewis also admits this. Stalnaker: my approach seems to be really close to the one of Lewis, but no. Centered poss.w.: one should perhaps instead of indistinguishable poss.w. speak of centered worlds (after Quine). These are then distinguishable. Indistinguishability/poss.w./Stalnaker: distinct but indistinguishable poss.w. would then be the same worlds but with different centers. Attitude/properties/propositions/centered world/Lewis: to treat objects of attitudes as sets of centered poss.w. makes them to properties instead of propositions. Centered poss.w./Stalnaker: I agree that possible situations normally, perhaps even essential, are centered in the sense of a representation of a particular mental state. II 146 StalnakerVsLewis: but this makes the approach (gods example) more complicated when it comes to the relations between different mental states. E.g. to compare past with current states is then more difficult, or relations between the convictions of different people. Information/communication/Stalnaker: we need then additional explanation about how information is exchanged. Two examples: E.g. O'Leary is freed from his trunk and wonders at around nine: a) "What time was it when I wondered what time it was?" Stalnaker: that is the same question like the one he asked then. When he learns that it was three o'clock, his doubt has been eliminated. Solution: the doubt is eliminated since all possible situations (poss.w.) in which a thought occurs at two different times are involved. The centers of these situations have moved in the sense that it is now nine o'clock and O'Leary no longer in the trunk but it may be that the first occurrence of the then thought is what O'Leary is now thinking about. Important argument: this moving of the center does not require that the poss.w. that the propositions characterize are changed. b) "What time was it when I wondered if it was three or four?". (If he wondered twice) Indistinguishability: even if the two incidents were indistinguishable for O'Leary, it may still be that it was the first time which O'Leary remembers at around nine o'clock. StalnakerVsLewis: his approach is more complicated. According to his approach we have to say at three o'clock, O'Leary wonders about his current temporal localization in the actual world (act.wrld.) instead of wondering in what poss.w. he is. Versus: at nine, things are quite different: now he wonders if he lives in a poss.w. in which a particular thought occurred at three or four. This is unnecessarily complicated. E.g. Lingens, still in the library, meets Ortcutt and asks him "Do you know who I am?" – "You are my cousin, Rudolf Lingens!". Stalnaker: that seems to be a simple and successful communication. Information was requested and given. The question was answered. II 147 Proposition/Stalnaker: (Propositions as belief objects) Ortcutt's answer expresses a proposition that distinguishes between possible situations and eliminates Lingen's doubt. StalnakerVsLewis: according to his approach (self-ascription of properties), it is again more complicated: Lingens: asks if he correctly ascribes himself a certain set of properties i. Ortcutt: answers by ascribing himself a completely different set of properties. Lingens: has to conclude then subsequently himself the answer. So all the answers are always indirect in communication. ((s) also StalnakerVsChisholm, implicit). Communication/Lewis/Chisholm/StalnakerVsLewis/StalnakerVsChsholm: everyone then always speaks only about himself. Solution/Stalnaker: Lewis would otherwise have to distinguish between attitudes and speech acts and say that speech acts have propositions as object and attitudes properties as an object. Problem/StalnakerVsLewis: Lewis cannot say by intuition that the content of Ortcutt's answer is the information that eliminates Lingen's doubt. That is also a problem for Perry's approach. (> StalnakerVsPerry) |
Stalnaker I R. Stalnaker Ways a World may be Oxford New York 2003 |
Quine, W.V.O. | Schiffer Vs Quine, W.V.O. | I 137 Paul and Elmer/SchifferVsQuine: Quine: there are no countable belief objects. E.g. If John believes that snow is white, and Mary believes that snow is white, there must be something that both believe. Schiffer: this conditional is wrong: I 138 either that or the alleged quantification for belief objects is not what it appears to be in the Quine's eye. I 144 SchifferVsQuine: harmless apparent quantification. I 235 Substitutional Quantification/Schiffer. E.g. (c) There is something that Mother Teresa, (namely modesty) is true because a substitution instance of "Mother Teresa X" is true, namely (b): Mother Teresa has the property to be modest. ontological commitment: at substitutional quantification: are only those of the true substitution instances. Universals/Quine: (On what there is, 1953, 10): it is misleading to say that red houses, red roses and red sunsets have something in common. SchifferVsQuine: for whom these everyday speech would it misleading? One can therefore say something true, assuming substitutional quantification. Similarly E.g. "there is a chance that you will win". there are/exist/substitutional quantification/substitutional quantification/Lycan: (1979): Allowed e.g. "There are many things that do not exist". E.g. Loch Ness monster, etc. Properties/Schiffer: in most books of Non-Platonists there is quantification over properties. ((s)> Second order Logic). Quine himself gives an e.g. Properties/Attribute/Existence/"There is"/quantification/second order logic/Schiffer: Quine 1966, p 164): "is valid" is a verb that can be appended to the name of a sentence, and expresses an attribute of the designated sentence. I 237 Schiffer: nobody would assume here that Quine hereby makes an ontological commitment to the existence of attributes. Solution: It is "apparent" quantification that is true, if it is understood as a substitutional quantification. |
Schi I St. Schiffer Remnants of Meaning Cambridge 1987 |
Realism | Grover Vs Realism | Horwich I 354 Propositions/Camp.Grover,Belnap/CGBVsRealism/GroverVsRealism: Is it enough that we have found a construction for the manner of speech about truth that never makes "true" as referring to a proposition necessary to answer to the realist that we do not need any propositions as belief objects? We are not sure, but we make some suggestions. (See propositions). Belief/Problem: even if we do not need propositions for discourse about truth, they might be necessary in the case of sentences about belief and psychological attitudes. I 355 Suppose there is a viable adverbial theory to solve these problems. Propositional Attitudes/Belief/Generalization/Pro-Sentence Theory/CGB: Advantage: the pro-sentence theory allows generalizations about belief without introducing propositions! At least not if they are not already assumed in simpler sentences. E.g. (33) Everything is so that if Charley beliefs it is true, it is true. If "it is true" is used here as quantificatorical pro-sentence instead of a combination of quantificatorical pronoun and T-predicate, then (33) does not need to be regarded as analogous with 1st order quantification with individual variables over propositions. Rather, it is comparable with the propositional quantification in Ramsey with variables about sentences. roblem: it might still seem that (33) requires propositions. Solution/CGB: Substitutional Quantification/SQ/CGB: then we assume that the truth of (33) is equivalent with the truth of all its substitution instances. Important argument: then the reference to propositions does not take place at the level of individual beliefs, and then no obligation on propositions emerges from the generalization. |
Grover I D. L. Grover Joseph L. Camp Nuel D. Belnap, "A Prosentential Theory of Truth", Philosophical Studies, 27 (1975) pp. 73-125 In Theories of Truth, Paul Horwich Aldershot 1994 Horwich I P. Horwich (Ed.) Theories of Truth Aldershot 1994 |
Skepticism | Davidson Vs Skepticism | I (e) 93 VsSkepticism: a general skepticism cannot even be formulated with regard to the information of our senses, because the senses and their information do not even play a role in explaining the belief, meaning and knowledge, provided the content depends on the causal relations between the attitudes and the world. Of course, the senses play an important causal role in understanding and in language acquisition. II 124 DavidsonVsSkepticism: This can be pathologized and ignored (like FregeVsSkeptizism: the skepticist cannot be cured, because he cannot assume even with his next statement that his words still have the same meaning as before). II 128 DavidsonVs: Although it is possible to be wrong, but only in exceptional cases. Particularly a meaning-theoretical externalism allows to explain the asymmetry that exists between the knowledge of the externally and interanlly psychological. Davidson externally mental/internally mental: asymmetry II 129 We only have to interpret others. But we have to assume that the speaker himself knows in general what his words mean. It is also true from the perspective of the actor himself that he is not in a position to wonder whether he generally uses his words for the right objects and events, because whatever he regularly applies them to gives his words the meaning they have. Horwich I 450 DavidsonVsSkepticism: in the methodically simplest cases we just have to assume that the belief objects are also the cause of the belief. Communication/Davidson: starts where causes converge. That means if belief in the truth in foreign assertions is systematically caused by the same events and objects ((s) as that of attributing person). Richard Rorty (1986), "Pragmatism, Davidson and Truth" in E. Lepore (Ed.) Truth and Interpretation. Perspectives on the philosophy of Donald Davidson, Oxford, pp. 333-55. Reprinted in: Paul Horwich (Ed.) Theories of truth, Dartmouth, England USA 1994 Rorty VI 166 DavidsonVsSkepticism/Rorty: the "problem of the outside world" and the "externally mental" is based on a false distinction between the "phenomenological content of experience" (tradition) and the intentional states, which are attributed to a person based on their causal interactions with the environment. Rorty VI 231 DavidsonVsSkepticism: Davidson does not worry (according to Rorty) about answering directly, rather he wants to undermine the notion of the skepticist that we could know what our beliefs are without already believing many true things with regard to the causal link between those beliefs and the world. Skepticism does not realize that self-attributions of experiences presuppose the attribution of intentional states, which in turn is only possible for someone who believes a lot of truth with regard to the world. |
Davidson I D. Davidson Der Mythos des Subjektiven Stuttgart 1993 Davidson I (a) Donald Davidson "Tho Conditions of Thoughts", in: Le Cahier du Collège de Philosophie, Paris 1989, pp. 163-171 In Der Mythos des Subjektiven, Stuttgart 1993 Davidson I (b) Donald Davidson "What is Present to the Mind?" in: J. Brandl/W. Gombocz (eds) The MInd of Donald Davidson, Amsterdam 1989, pp. 3-18 In Der Mythos des Subjektiven, Stuttgart 1993 Davidson I (c) Donald Davidson "Meaning, Truth and Evidence", in: R. Barrett/R. Gibson (eds.) Perspectives on Quine, Cambridge/MA 1990, pp. 68-79 In Der Mythos des Subjektiven, Stuttgart 1993 Davidson I (d) Donald Davidson "Epistemology Externalized", Ms 1989 In Der Mythos des Subjektiven, Stuttgart 1993 Davidson I (e) Donald Davidson "The Myth of the Subjective", in: M. Benedikt/R. Burger (eds.) Bewußtsein, Sprache und die Kunst, Wien 1988, pp. 45-54 In Der Mythos des Subjektiven, Stuttgart 1993 Davidson II Donald Davidson "Reply to Foster" In Truth and Meaning, G. Evans/J. McDowell Oxford 1976 Davidson III D. Davidson Essays on Actions and Events, Oxford 1980 German Edition: Handlung und Ereignis Frankfurt 1990 Davidson IV D. Davidson Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation, Oxford 1984 German Edition: Wahrheit und Interpretation Frankfurt 1990 Davidson V Donald Davidson "Rational Animals", in: D. Davidson, Subjective, Intersubjective, Objective, Oxford 2001, pp. 95-105 In Der Geist der Tiere, D Perler/M. Wild Frankfurt/M. 2005 Horwich I P. Horwich (Ed.) Theories of Truth Aldershot 1994 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 |
Stalnaker, R. | Field Vs Stalnaker, R. | II 35 Proposition/Mathematics/Stalnaker: (1976, p 88): There are only two mathematical propositions, the necessarily true one and the necessarily false one. And we know that the first one is true and the second one is false. Problem: The functions that determine which of the two ((s) E.g. "This sentence is true", "this sentence is false"?) is expressed by a mathematical statement are just sufficiently complex to doubt which of the two is being expressed. Solution/Stalnaker: therefore the belief objects in mathematics should be considered as propositions about the relation between sentences and what they say. FieldVsStalnaker: it does not work. E.g. "the Banach-Tarski conditional" stands for the conditional whose antecedent is the conjunction of the set theory with the axiom of choice (AoC) and whose consequent is the Banach-Tarski theorem (BTT). Suppose a person doubts the BTT, but knows the rule of language which refers sentences of the language of the ML to propositions. By Stalnaker, this person would not really doubt the proposition expressed by the BT conditional, because it is a logical truth. Field: what he really doubts is the proposition that is expressed by the following: (i) the language rules connect the BT conditional with necessary truth. Problem: because the person is familiar with the language rules for the language of the ML, he can only doubt (i) even if he also doubted the proposition expressed by the following: (ii) the language rules __ refer the BT conditional to the necessary truth. wherein the voids must be filled with the language rules of the language. Important argument: FieldVsStalnaker: the proposition expressed by (ii) is a necessary truth itself! And because Stalnaker supposes coarse sets of possible worlds, he cannot distinguish by this if anyone believes them or not. ((s) because it makes no difference in the sets of possible worlds, because necessary truth is true in every possible world). FieldVsStalnaker: the rise of mathematical propositions to metalinguistic ones has lead to nothing. Proposition/FieldVsStalnaker: must be individuated more finely than amounts of possible worlds and Lewis shows us how: if we accept that the believing of a proposition involves an attitude towards sentences. E.g. Believing ML is roughly the same thing as believing* the conjunction of its axioms. The believed* sentences have several fine-grained meanings. Therefore (1) attributes different fine-grained propositions to the two different persons. II 45 Representation/Functionalism/Field: 1) Question: Does an adequate belief theory need to have assumptions about representations incorporated explicitly?. Functionalism/Field: does not offer an alternative to representations here. By that I mean more than the fact that functionalism is compatible with representations. Lewis and Stalnaker would admit that. Representation/Lewis/Stalnaker/Field: both would certainly admit that assuming one opened the head of a being and found a blackboard there on which several English sentence were written, and if, furthermore, one saw that this influenced the behavior in the right way, then we would have a strong assumption for representations. This shows that functionalism is compatible with representations. Representation/FieldVsStalnaker/FieldVsLewis: I’m hinting at something stronger that both would certainly reject: I think the two would say that without opening the head we have little reason to believe in representations. II 46 It would be unfounded neurophysiological speculation. S-Proposition/Stalnaker: 2 Advantages: 1) as a coarse-grained one it fits better into the pragmatic approach of intentional states (because of their ((s) more generous) identity conditions for contents). 2) this is the only way we can solve Brentano’s problem of the naturalistic explanation of mind states. II 82 Belief/Stalnaker: Relation between the cognitive state of an acting person and S-propositions. II 83 FieldVsStalnaker. Vs 1) and 2) 1) The whole idea of E.g. "the object of", "the contents of" should be treated with caution. In a very general sense they are useful to determine the equality of such contents. But this is highly context-dependent. II 84 2) Stalnaker does not only want to attribute entities to mind states as their content, but even. Def intrinsically representational entities/iR/Field: in them, it is already incorporated that they represent the real universe in a certain way. 3) Even if we attribute such intrinsically representational entities as content, it is not obvious that there could be only one type of such iR. Fine-grained/Coarse/FieldVsStalnaker: for him, there seems to be a clear separation; I believe it is not so clear. Therefore, it is also not clear for me whether his S-propositions are the right content, but I do not want to call them the "wrong" content, either. Field: Thesis: We will also need other types of "content-like" properties of mind states, both for the explanation of behavior and for the naturalistic access to content. Intentionality/Mind State/Stalnaker/Field: Stalnaker represents what he calls the pragmatic image and believes that it leads to the following: 1) the belief objects are coarse. Def Coarse/Stalnaker: are belief objects that cannot be logically different and at the same equivalent. 2) StalnakerVsMentalese/StalnakerVsLanguage of Thought. Mentalese/Language of Thought/Stalnaker/Field: apparently, Stalnaker believes that a thought language (which is more finely grained) would have to lead to a rejection of the pragmatic image. FieldVsStalnaker: this is misleading. Def Pragmatic Image/Intentionality/Stalnaker/Field: Stalnaker Thesis: representational mind states should be understood primarily in terms of the role they play in the characterization of actions. II 85 StalnakerVsLinguistic Image: Thesis: Speaking is only one type of action. It has no special status. |
Field I H. Field Realism, Mathematics and Modality Oxford New York 1989 Field II H. Field Truth and the Absence of Fact Oxford New York 2001 Field III H. Field Science without numbers Princeton New Jersey 1980 Field IV Hartry Field "Realism and Relativism", The Journal of Philosophy, 76 (1982), pp. 553-67 In Theories of Truth, Paul Horwich Aldershot 1994 |
Tradition | Stalnaker Vs Tradition | II 7 Presupposition/StalnakerVsTradition: should not be explained in concepts of semantic content: the truth conditions (tr.c.) of the propositions that contain these presuppositions. Thesis: instead, they should be understood independently of the tr.cond. as a propositional attitude, not as a semantic relation. Things that we - in certain contexts - take for granted. Präsupposition/Stalnaker: is context-dependent. Def Presupposition condition/Stalnaker: that a speaker would not use a propositoin S which presupposes that P, if he does not accept P in this context. II 8 But this describes only a surface phenomenon, it is not a theoretical concept. II 130 Index words/indexical convictions/ascription/belief ascription/Stalnaker: the problems of ascriptions in which index words occur were lately treated by Lit: Castaneda 1966, 1967, Perry 1977, 1979, Lewis 1979a. Belief object/index words/StalnakerVsTradition: thesis: we need a against tradition radically altered conception of the belief objects when index words are in the game. Proposition/abstract object/Stalnaker: I understand a proposition as an abstract object abstract object/object/abstract/Stalnaker: e.g. a proposition is an abstract object. |
Stalnaker I R. Stalnaker Ways a World may be Oxford New York 2003 |
Various Authors | Cresswell Vs Various Authors | II 58 Computation/Cresswell: (representative: e.g. Moore/Hendrix, 1981) make it appear as if they have solved a problem which logicians have tried in vain to solve for years. CresswellVs: these are two completely different issues: ((s) The logicians are more concerned with the semantic one, the computation people with psychological issues). Content/Cresswell: (of a complement sentence) can be considered to be an equivalence class of all objects that are considered representations of this sentence. Belief objects/Moore/Hendrix (Hendrix 1981) some of these objects (the objects of mental states such as beliefs) are sentences in an internal language of the mind, others are in public language. There may be some that are in no language at all. (E.g. logical formulas). --- II 59 Content/Meaning/Cresswell: two sentences have the same meaning when they have the same content, providing they contain no index words. (5) The map indicates that the distance to Lower Moutere is 12 km. ... This requires each sentence to already have a meaning, so that the attitude is simply an attitude with regard to the meaning. CresswellVsMoore/CresswellVsHendrix: i.e. we can only solve the problem of Moore and Hendrix if we already have a semantics. Synonymy/Cresswell: if the synonymy relation ~~ (notation: in the book two swung dashes on top of each other) is defined like that, it can be set up compositionally for the whole language. I have no idea how this is supposed to work, but Hendrix and Moore refrain from it anyway. CresswellVsHendrix: they do not show how the synonymy classes are obtained. --- Hughes I 260 Non-standard systems/Hughes/Cresswell: have other basic operators as L and M. E.g. Halldén (1949b): limitation to a single three-digit operator which defines all other modal and truth-functional operators: [p, q, r] with the meaning that "either p is false or q is false or r is impossible" , i.e. (~p v ~q v ~Mr). Then: negation, conjunction, possibility: ~a = def [a,a,a] (a . b) = def [a,b[a, ~a,a]] Ma = def ~[[a, ~a,a],[a ~a,a],a] Hughes I 261 Hughes/CresswellVsHalldén: that makes an unnatural impression. |
Cr I M. J. Cresswell Semantical Essays (Possible worlds and their rivals) Dordrecht Boston 1988 Cr II M. J. Cresswell Structured Meanings Cambridge Mass. 1984 Hughes I G.E. Hughes Maxwell J. Cresswell Einführung in die Modallogik Berlin New York 1978 |
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