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The author or concept searched is found in the following 2 entries.
| Disputed term/author/ism | Author |
Entry |
Reference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Acceptability | Habermas | III 400/401 Acceptability/communicative action/Habermas: a speech act should be called "acceptable" if it fulfils the conditions so that a listener can say "yes". These conditions cannot be fulfilled unilaterally, neither speaker nor listener relative. Rather, they are conditions for the intersubjective recognition of a linguistic claim, which constitutes a content-specified agreement on liabilities that are relevant for the consequences of the interaction. >Speech acts, >Illocutionary act, >Perlocutionary act. Within the theory of communicative action we start from the special case that the speaker literally means his statements. I call this case the standard conditions. >Communicative action/Habermas, >Communication theory/Habermas, >Communication/Habermas, >Communicative practice/Habermas, >Communicative rationality/Habermas. III 406 A speaker can rationally motivate a listener to accept if, due to an internal connection between validity, validity claim and redemption of the validity claim, he/she can guarantee to give convincing reasons, if necessary, which stand up to criticism of the validity claim. The binding force of illocutionary success does not then stem from the validity of what has been said, but from the coordination effect of the guarantee it offers to redeem the validity claim if necessary. This applies in cases where there is no claim to power but a validity claim. |
Ha I J. Habermas Der philosophische Diskurs der Moderne Frankfurt 1988 Ha III Jürgen Habermas Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns Bd. I Frankfurt/M. 1981 Ha IV Jürgen Habermas Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns Bd. II Frankfurt/M. 1981 |
| Acceptability | Lyons | I 140f Def Acceptability/Grammar/Lyons: an utterance is acceptable if it was or could be used by a native speaker in a particular context and is or would be perceived by other native speakers as belonging to that language. Linguistics: one of its tasks is to explain which sentences are acceptable within the framework of a general theory of language structure. I 146 Acceptability/Level: at a lower level: here phonology is responsible for the acceptability of statements. >Phonemes. Grammar: replaces phonology at a higher level. >Grammar. I 151 Grammatical/meaningful/(sensible)/Lyons: we can now rewrite this distinction provisionally: Acceptable: e.g. 1. The dog bites the man. 2. The chimpanzee eats the banana. 3. The wind opens the door. 4. The Linguist recognizes the fact. 5. The meaning determines the structure. 6. The woman undresses the child. 7. The wind frightens the child. 8. The child drinks the milk. 9. The dog sees the meat. Tradition: would describe all as subject-predicate-structure and say that the subject is a syntagma (unit of several words consisting of articles and nouns). Def Syntagma/Linguistics: Unit of several words: Example predicate: = verb + object. I 152 Word classes: N = {dog, man, chimpanzee, fact...} V = {bites, eats, opens, recognizes… T: article Grammatical Rule: ∑1: T + N + V + T + N Notation: : stands for “sentence”. Subscript: shows that the rule only applies to one class of sentences. Grammatical rule: not only requires a lexicon that classifies all words of the language grammatically as N, V, or T, but also one or more rules for lexical substitution. First of all, we assume that such rules exist. I 153 Subclassification/Grammar/Lyons: now we can allow finer rules by dividing the classes finer ((s) to exclude "The banana bites the child"): Na = {dog, man, chimpanzee, linguist, child, wind... Nb = {banana, door, milk, meat…} Nc = [{ fact, meaning, structure… Vd = {eats, bites, frightens, undresses, sees,… Ve = { recognizes, determines, sees, eats… Vf = {determines…} 1. How we came to the decisions of the classification is irrelevant. I 154 Instead, it is about which classification allows the grammarian to set up a number of rules that cover the largest number of acceptable and the smallest number of unacceptable sentences. 2. The new subclasses can be considered as if there were no longer any relationship between them. 3. Some words are assigned to several classes. Example determines, sees. New: we then replace the original rule with several new rules (which define very different sentence types): a) ∑ 1: T + Na + Vd + T + Nas (e.g. The dog bites the man) b) ∑ 2: T + Na + Vd + T + Nb (e.g. The chimpanzee eats the banana) c) ∑ 3: T + Na + Ve + T + Nc (e.g. The linguist recognizes the fact) d) ∑ 4: T + Nc + Vf + T + Nc (e.g. The meaning determines the structure) I 155 N.B.: the new rules redefine the distinction between grammatical and ungrammatical English sentences. "The banana bites the meaning" is no longer possible, according to the simple rule T + N + V + T + N it would not have been excluded. However, there are still inadmissible statements that cannot be ruled out. Formal Grammar/Lyons: this is all about acceptability according to rules. Lexicon/Grammar/Lyons: the distinction between lexical and grammatical elements can still be neglected here. Grammaticality/Lyons: the linguist will draw the limit at an arbitrary place in his description. Two main factors: 1. law of "decreasing profitability": I 156 It should be avoided that one needs too many rules, which in the end only capture very few words. 2. Because of the unlimited number of sentences, it is not possible to decide for each sentence whether it is acceptable or not. This leads to an "indeterminacy of grammar". Problem: (see I 389 below): the design of sentences of a certain type within a certain theoretical framework can make the design of sentences of another type within the same theoretical framework very difficult. That is still unsolved today (1968). Acceptability/Grammar/Lyons: can only be determined in relation to one rule system. Different grammars assess the grammaticality of certain sentences differently. >Grammar, >Generative Grammar, >Universal Grammar, >Transformational grammar, >Categorial grammar, >N. Chomsky. |
Ly II John Lyons Semantics Cambridge, MA 1977 Lyons I John Lyons Introduction to Theoretical Lingustics, Cambridge/MA 1968 German Edition: Einführung in die moderne Linguistik München 1995 |
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| Disputed term/author/ism | Author Vs Author |
Entry |
Reference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Carnap, R. | Stroud Vs Carnap, R. | I 182 External/internal/Carnap/Quine/Stroud: Quine seems to interpret Carnap this way. That the distinction between "category questions" and "subsets questions" corresponds to the distinction. External/QuineVsCarnap: this is nothing more than two ways of formalizing the language. If we have only one kind of bound variable for all things, it will be an external question: "Is there such and such?" if the variable goes over the whole range. (This is a question of category). Internally: if there is a variable for every kind of thing, it will be a subset question. Then the question does not refer to all the things that can exist. I 183 Philosophy/QuineVsCarnap: differs from the sciences only in the range of its categories. (Quine, Word and Object, p. 275). External/internal/QuineVsCarnap: Category questions differ from internal questions only in their generality from subset questions. We can get to the generality by letting some kind of variable go over all things. I 191 StroudVsCarnap: this introduces a "we", and something that happens to us, called "experience". That we exist and have experience cannot simply be seen as an "internal" truth of the thing language. One cannot then see the meaning of experience as the common goal of all "real alternatives", because then it is assumed that there are external things. Problem: the question of the common goal of all genuine alternatives cannot be regarded as an external question of all reference systems either, because then it becomes meaningless. But if it were "internal", what would be the difference if one were to switch from one reference system to another that does not even contain this goal? Carnap does not answer that. I 192 This makes it difficult to grasp his positive approach. CarnapVsSkepticism: misunderstands the relation between linguistic frame of expression about external objects and the truths expressed within this system of reference. StroudVsCarnap: but what exactly is his own non-sceptical approach to this relation? 1. To which system does Carnap's thesis belong that assertions of existence in the language of things are neither true nor false? 2. What does the thesis express at all then? Knowledge/internal/Carnap: for example the geometer in Africa really comes to knowledge about the mountain. StroudVsCarnap: but what does it mean in addition to the fact that this is not a truth that is independent of a reference system? Suppose for some reason we did not have the thing language and could freely choose another language. Does it follow from this that, for example, the sentence about the mountain in Africa would no longer be true? Surely we would express something completely different in a completely different language without thing expressions. But would the sentence we can make now not be true in this other language? I 193 And could it never be true if we had never accidentally adopted the thing language. Existence/Language/Skepticism/StroudVsCarnap: that cannot be right and it leads to an extreme idealism that Carnap just rejects. It is absurd because we already know enough about mountains to see that they are not influenced by a chosen language. Language/object/Stroud: things were there long before language came into being in the world. And that again is something we know "internally" in the thing language. StroudVsCarnap: then his thesis, understood as "internal" to the language, is wrong. It contradicts what we already assume it as knowledge about ourselves and external things. Empirically speaking, it leads to idealism that contradicts the known facts. CarnapVsVs: would say that of course one must not understand his thesis "empirically" and not the thing language "internally". StroudVsCarnap: but within some reference system it must be internal, otherwise it is meaningless. Problem: but this is a statement about the relation between a chosen framework and the internal statements within that framework. And if that implies that these internal statements would have been neither true nor false, if a different frame of reference had been chosen, it is still idealism, whether empirical or non empirical idealism. Truth Value/tr.v./Convention/StroudVsCarnap: the truth value of the internal sentences would depend on the choice of language (of the reference system). I 194 StroudVsCarnap: it is important to see that if this did not follow, Carnap's thesis would not be different from traditional skepticism! There would then be room for the possibility that statements about things would remain true, even if we abandoned the thing language and truth would again be independent of language. Problem: that would again lead to our choice of a linguistic framework being necessary only to formulate or recognize something that would be true anyway ((s) > metaphysical realism) independently of that framework. Theoretically: according to Carnap this would then be a "theoretical" question about the acceptability of the thing language as a whole. But in terms of objectivity, which we then presuppose. CarnapVsTradition: it is precisely the incomprehensibility of such theoretical questions that is important in Carnap. Because Problem: then it could be that even if we carefully apply our best procedures (> Best explanation), things could still be different from what we think they are. This is equivalent to skepticism. "Conditional Correctness"/Skepticism/Carnap/Stroud: Carnap accepts what I have called the "conditional correctness" of skepticism: if the skeptic could ask a meaningful question, he would prevail. StroudVsCarnap: if he now would not deny that the "internal" sentences remain true or false when changing the reference system, his approach would be just as tolerant of skepticism as tradition. ((s) So both denial and non-denial would become a problem.) Kant/Stroud: he also accepts the "conditional correctness" of skepticism. If Descartes' description of experience and its relation to external things were correct, we could never know anything about these things. Carnap/Stroud: his thesis is a version of Kant's "Copernican Turn". And he obtains it for the same reasons as Kant: without it we would have no explanation, how is it possible that we know anything at all? Reference system/frame/StroudVsCarnap: a gap opens up between the frame and what is true independently of it. ((s) If a choice between different frames is to be possible). StroudVsCarnap: in this respect, Carnap's approach is entirely Kantian. I 196 And he also inherits all the obscurity and idealism of Kant. There are parallels everywhere: for both there can be a kind of distancing from our belief. We can do a philosophical study of everyday life (as far as the conditions of knowledge are concerned). I 197 Reference system/framework/StroudVsCarnap: to which framework does Carnap's thesis belong that no propositions about external objects are true or false regardless of the choice of a reference system (language)? And is this thesis - analytical or not - itself "internal" in any framework? And whether it is or not, is it not merely an expression of Kantian Transcendental Idealism? Skepticism/StroudVsCarnap: the basic mistake is to develop any competing theory at all to tradition. I 198 A purely negative approach or deflationary use of the verification principle would simply eliminate skepticism as pointless. If that were possible, scepticism would no longer need to be undermined. But: Verification Principle/StroudVsCarnap: Problem: the status of the verification principle itself, or its acceptability. We can only use it to refute Descartes if we have a good reason to accept it as necessary. But that depends on how it is introduced. It should serve to prevent the excesses of senseless philosophical speculation. StroudVsCarnap: 1. Then we can only watch and see how far the principle can lead to a distinction that we have already made before! The only test would be sentences, which we would have recognized as senseless before! 2. But even assuming that the principle would be adequately proven as extensional and descriptive, i.e. it would distinguish between meaningful and senseless, as we do, I 199 it would not allow us to eliminate something as senseless that we had not already recognized as senseless by other means. Verification Principle/StroudVsCarnap: was incorrectly introduced ((s) with the ulterior motive of producing a result that was already fully known). Early Carnap sketches show that general laws of nature were initially wrongly excluded. Verification principle/VP/StroudVsCarnap: a correct introduction would provide a strong destructive tool that Kant was already looking for: it would have to explain why the verfication principle is correct. This would probably be identical to an explanation of how knowledge of external things is possible. Verification Principle/Hempel/Carnap/Stroud: the early representatives had in mind that 1. a sentence is meaningful only if it expresses an "actual content", 2. that understanding a sentence means knowing what would happen if the sentence were true. Verificationism/Stroud: There is nothing particularly original about this approach. What gives it the verificationist twist is the idea that we cannot even understand anything that cannot be known as true or false, or weaker: at least to believe as more rational than its opposite. StroudVsCarnap: that failed, even as an attempt to extract empirically verifiable sentences. I 205 SkepticismVsVerificationism/StroudVsVerificationism/StroudVsCarnap: even if verificationism is true, we still need an explanation of how and why traditional philosophical ((s) non-empirical) inquiry fails. ((s) should correspond here to skepticism). (>Why-question). I 207 StroudVsVerificationism/StroudVsCarnap/StroudVsHempel: it is more plausible to reject the verification principle ((s) > empiricist sense criterion) than to claim that Descartes never said anything meaningful. StroudVsVerification Principle: it will remain implausible as long as it is not understood why the traditional distinction internal/external should not be correct. I 214 Formal manner of speaking: ""Wombat" applies to (is true of) some living beings in Tasmania". QuineVsCarnap: misunderstands the semantic ascent when he speaks of external issues. But this does not reject Carnap's pragmatic approach to simplicity and fertility of theories. |
Stroud I B. Stroud The Significance of philosophical scepticism Oxford 1984 |
| Coherence Theory | Williams, M. Vs Coherence Theory | Horwich I 488 Coherence Theory/M. Williams: has to do with skepticism. The coherence theory says that the analysis of truth in non-epistemic terms makes it inaccessible. M. Williams: if that were true, disquotationalism, but also the richer correspondence theory, would be excluded. I 489 Truth/justification/acceptability/Arthur Fine: when one sees that the realistic T-concept creates a gap that keeps the epistemic approach ((s) justification) always out of reach, one might be tempted to redefine truth in epistemic terms to literally make it accessible. M. WilliamsVs: as an epistemic thesis, skepticism can only be derived under skeptical premises! Truth/Skepticism/M. Williams: no concept of truth makes it inaccessible by itself: one always needs epistemic premises! Gap/M. Williams: the gap Fine means is probable: even the best justified belief can be wrong. M. WilliamsVs: nevertheless, why should this lead to radical skepticism? ((s) Everyone can be wrong, but not all can be wrong). Correspondence Theory/Skepticism/M. Williams: combined with a Cartesian dualism it leads to skepticism. But if representations can only be compared with other representations, this leads to the coherence theory ((s) Berkeley> Coherence Theory). Correspondence Theory/M. Williams: modern form: tends towards naturalism and physicalism by identifying reference with a causal relation. (Causal Theory of Reference). I 490 Correspondence Theory: argues with the impossibility of an alternative. Coherence theory does the same! M. Williams: both do not answer the question: why not be satisfied with deflationism? Deflationism/M. Williams: can share many of the criticisms of Correspondence TheoryVsCoherence Theory and vice versa. Because he neither shapes the idea of truth as correspondence nor shows that truth is an epistemic property. I 495 Correspondence Theory/Putnam/M. Williams: Putnam: because the truth of our beliefs explains success, a correspondence theory can explain, I 496 what is the contribution of language behaviour to the success of overall behaviour. Truth/Explanation: this is how success explains it: (i) if we have true beliefs about our goals, we will generally achieve them. (ii) We have true beliefs about how we achieve our goals. (iii) We generally achieve our goals. Horwich: admits that truth actually has an explanatory role here. Putnam would be right if there were no alternative explanation. VsPutnam/VsCorrespondence Theory: yet there is no obvious connection between his argument and a physicalistic correspondence theory: Truth/Law/M. Williams: you can save Putnam's argument by assuming that (i) involves a generalization that may even be lawful. BoydVsPutnam: does not want truth to appear in any laws. ((s) The theory explains success as well as the truth of the theory. Instead, the theories could simply be listed. - Vs: that would only work without generalization.) M. Williams: I do not believe that (i) is a law. That is because it is not really an empirical position. Belief/Content/Truth/Davidson: determining their content is not independent of giving meaning to our general behaviour and therefore most must be true. Ad (i): is then not an empirical law but a reflection of a condition of interpretation. I 497 Correspondence Theory/Putnam: it is not the explanation of our success that motivates the correspondence theory itself, but the consideration of Premise (ii): that most beliefs are true. Belief/PutnamVsDavidson: that most are true is not guaranteed by the methodology of interpretation, because the stock of beliefs is constantly changing. Therefore, we can only give (ii) meaning if we explain the reliability of learning and only realism can do that. Causal Theory/Correspondence/Putnam: the reliability of learning: would present us as reliable signal generators. What would the truth theory contribute? It communicates that the proposition is true iff the state exists. This is the correspondence involved in causal theory, it is exactly the correspondence established by the T-Def. Deflationism/Correspondence/M. Williams: to him this minimal correspondence is also available. I.e. Putnam's argument does not guarantee physical correspondence or any other substantial theory. |
Horwich I P. Horwich (Ed.) Theories of Truth Aldershot 1994 |
| Correspondence Theory | Williams, M. Vs Correspondence Theory | Horwich I 487 Deflationism/M. Williams: (pro) However, we should not call it theory but perspective. He is interesting, not because he tells us something new, but because he denies that we need something beyond that. (VsCorrepsondence Theory, VsCoherence Theory). I 488 Question: What could a substantial truth theory (which goes beyond deflationism) say that deflationism cannot? Correspondence TheoryVsCoherence Theory/M.Williams: appeals to "intuition", which is not a helpful term. (Also Correspondence TheoryVsPragmatism). "Intuition": should be here that even ideally justified beliefs can be wrong. ((s) Whereby the term "ideal" is kept rigid.) Correspondence Theory: then follows realism by saying that truth has nothing to do with justification or acceptability, but with a non-epistemic relation to the world. ((s) Example causation). M.WilliamsVs: if this were the case: even if all philosophers shared this intuition, why should it be more than a cultural prejudice in favor of correspondence theory? Def Epistemic/(s): e.g. justification, acceptability. Instead of e.g. causation. M.WilliamsVsCorrespondence Theory: the intuition against epistemic access to truth is not automatically an argument for correspondence theory. At best it excludes an identification of truth with an epistemic property. Thus it becomes acceptable for deflationism, which does not make this identification either. Disquotationalism//M.Williams: this shows that even disquotational truth is "realistic". That is, truth is not an epistemic property (justification or acceptability, M. WilliamsVsPutnam), just as it is not in a full-fledged correspondence theory. Someone who believes that truth must be epistemic can regard disquotationalism as a "minimal realism". |
Horwich I P. Horwich (Ed.) Theories of Truth Aldershot 1994 |
| Dummett, M. | Putnam Vs Dummett, M. | VI 394 Understanding/truth conditions/WB/Dummett/Putnam: Dummett and I both agree that you cannot treat understanding as knowledge of the truth conditions. PutnamVsWittgenstein, DummettVsWittgenstein. Cf. >Understanding/Wittgenstein. Problem: then it gets incomprehensible when reversed, what this knowledge should be. Meaning/Meaning Theory/PutnamVsDummett: I do not think that a theory of understanding could be the entire meaning theory. VI 395 VsMetaphysical realism: thus, we can refute it with Dummett. (Through a theory of reference, not meaning theory). --- III 48/49 Proto-thoughts/PutnamVsDummett: terms for animals: dogs have just as little a preconception of meat, like gazelles have a preconception of running fast. ---- I (d) 124 Realism/anti-realism/PutnamVsDummett: Problem: We argue that the understanding of sentences would be knowing the truth conditions. But how can we say at all what this knowledge is? Putnam: We have seen that "mentalese" does not help. I (e) 151 Internal realism/PutnamVsDummett: related to Dummett, but: truth is not identified according to him with justification, but with an idealization of justification. Putnam: Truth should be a property of statements that cannot get lost contrarily to the justification. Justification is also gradual as opposed to the truth. The "ideal justification" corresponds to the "frictionless surfaces" of physics. It has "pure value". Internal realism/PutnamVsDummett: related to its anti-realism, but truth is not identified with justification but with an idealization of justification, Quine: the justification conditions change with our corpus of knowledge. I (e) 152 Truth is independent of justification here and now, but not of any justification. (> Assertibility). Like Quine: the conditions of justification change with the development of our corpus of knowledge. ---- I (f) 161 Truth/justification/PutnamVsDummett: to reject the divine point of view, does not mean to identify truth with rational acceptability as Dummett says that we should do it. Truth: cannot get lost. Justification: can very well do this. E.g. "The earth is a disk." E.g. also that it is a ball, is not a "gradual truth" but it is gradually justified. Truth/Putnam: an idealization of rational acceptability. (Under epistemically ideal conditions). I (f) 162 Truth/Putnam: 1. independent of the justification here and now, but not independent of any justification. 2. supposed to be stable and convergent. --- I (h) 214 Truth/Dummett: (1976, 1991) is justification. PutnamVsDummett: 1. this is misleading in many ways, it is likely that one cannot specify the conditions of the justification for the sentences of a natural language. (But Dummett believes that). 2. Dummett believes in a final verification, I only in an idealized one (based on the current evidence, so context-sensitive). Assertibility conditions/PutnamVsDummett: are not manageable for an arbitrary sentence. How do we learn them? By appropriating a practice. But this is not an algorithm (how reductionist philosophers believe). I (h) 215 The assertibility conditions cannot be formalized and therefore not the human rationality. ((s) They may well be independent of situations, but not of our entire practice.) |
Putnam I Hilary Putnam Von einem Realistischen Standpunkt In Von einem realistischen Standpunkt, Vincent C. Müller Frankfurt 1993 Putnam I (a) Hilary Putnam Explanation and Reference, In: Glenn Pearce & Patrick Maynard (eds.), Conceptual Change. D. Reidel. pp. 196--214 (1973) In Von einem realistischen Standpunkt, Vincent C. Müller Reinbek 1993 Putnam I (b) Hilary Putnam Language and Reality, in: Mind, Language and Reality: Philosophical Papers, Volume 2. Cambridge University Press. pp. 272-90 (1995 In Von einem realistischen Standpunkt, Vincent C. Müller Reinbek 1993 Putnam I (c) Hilary Putnam What is Realism? in: Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 76 (1975):pp. 177 - 194. In Von einem realistischen Standpunkt, Vincent C. Müller Reinbek 1993 Putnam I (d) Hilary Putnam Models and Reality, Journal of Symbolic Logic 45 (3), 1980:pp. 464-482. In Von einem realistischen Standpunkt, Vincent C. Müller Reinbek 1993 Putnam I (e) Hilary Putnam Reference and Truth In Von einem realistischen Standpunkt, Vincent C. Müller Reinbek 1993 Putnam I (f) Hilary Putnam How to Be an Internal Realist and a Transcendental Idealist (at the Same Time) in: R. Haller/W. Grassl (eds): Sprache, Logik und Philosophie, Akten des 4. Internationalen Wittgenstein-Symposiums, 1979 In Von einem realistischen Standpunkt, Vincent C. Müller Reinbek 1993 Putnam I (g) Hilary Putnam Why there isn’t a ready-made world, Synthese 51 (2):205--228 (1982) In Von einem realistischen Standpunkt, Vincent C. Müller Reinbek 1993 Putnam I (h) Hilary Putnam Pourqui les Philosophes? in: A: Jacob (ed.) L’Encyclopédie PHilosophieque Universelle, Paris 1986 In Von einem realistischen Standpunkt, Vincent C. Müller Reinbek 1993 Putnam I (i) Hilary Putnam Realism with a Human Face, Cambridge/MA 1990 In Von einem realistischen Standpunkt, Vincent C. Müller Reinbek 1993 Putnam I (k) Hilary Putnam "Irrealism and Deconstruction", 6. Giford Lecture, St. Andrews 1990, in: H. Putnam, Renewing Philosophy (The Gifford Lectures), Cambridge/MA 1992, pp. 108-133 In Von einem realistischen Standpunkt, Vincent C. Müller Reinbek 1993 Putnam II Hilary Putnam Representation and Reality, Cambridge/MA 1988 German Edition: Repräsentation und Realität Frankfurt 1999 Putnam III Hilary Putnam Renewing Philosophy (The Gifford Lectures), Cambridge/MA 1992 German Edition: Für eine Erneuerung der Philosophie Stuttgart 1997 Putnam IV Hilary Putnam "Minds and Machines", in: Sidney Hook (ed.) Dimensions of Mind, New York 1960, pp. 138-164 In Künstliche Intelligenz, Walther Ch. Zimmerli/Stefan Wolf Stuttgart 1994 Putnam V Hilary Putnam Reason, Truth and History, Cambridge/MA 1981 German Edition: Vernunft, Wahrheit und Geschichte Frankfurt 1990 Putnam VI Hilary Putnam "Realism and Reason", Proceedings of the American Philosophical Association (1976) pp. 483-98 In Truth and Meaning, Paul Horwich Aldershot 1994 Putnam VII Hilary Putnam "A Defense of Internal Realism" in: James Conant (ed.)Realism with a Human Face, Cambridge/MA 1990 pp. 30-43 In Theories of Truth, Paul Horwich Aldershot 1994 SocPut I Robert D. Putnam Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community New York 2000 |
| Field, H. | Leeds Vs Field, H. | Field II 304 Indeterminacy/Set Theory/ST/Leeds/Field: e.g. somebody considers the term "set" to be undetermined, so he could say instead: The term can be made "as large as possible". (Leeds 1997,24) (s) "everything that is included in the term"). As such the term can have a wider or narrower definition. Cardinality of the continuum/Indeterminacy/Field: This indeterminacy should at least contain the term set membership. LeedsVsField: It is not coherent to accept set theory and to qualify its terms as indetermined at the same time. And it is not coherent to then apply classical logic in set theory. Field: It could also look like this: the philosophical comments should be separated from mathematics. But we do not need to separate theory from practice, e.g. if the belief in indeterminacy is expressed in whether the degree of the mathematician's belief in the continuum hypothesis and his "doubt degree" adds up to 1 ((s) So that there is no space left for a third possibility). Problem: A mathematician for whom it adds up to 1 could ask himself "Is the continuum hypothesis correct?" and would look for mathematical proof. A second mathematician, however, whose degree of certainty adds up to 0 ((s) since he believes in neither the continuum hypothesis nor its negation) will find it erroneous to look for proof. Each possibility deserves to be analyzed. The idea behind indeterminacy however is that only little needs to be defined beyond the accepted axioms. ((s) no facts.) Continuum Hypothesis/Field: Practical considerations may prefer a concept over one another in a particular context and a different one in another context. Solution/Field: This is not a problem as long as those contexts are hold separate. But is has been shown that its usefulness is independent from the truth. II 305 Williamsons/Riddle/Indeterminacy/Leeds/Field: (LeedsVsField): (e.g. it must be determined whether Joe is rich or not): Solution/Leeds: i) we exclude the terms in question, e.g. rich (in this example) from the markup language which we accept as "first class" and ii) the primary (disquotional) use of "referred" or "is true of" is only used for this markup language. Indeterminacy/Leeds: Is because there is no uniform best way to apply the disquotional scheme in order to translate into the markup language. Field: This is genius: To reduce all indeterminacy on the indeterminacy of the translation. FieldVsLeeds: I doubt that a meaning can be found. Problem: To differentiate between undetermined termini and those which are only different regarding the extension of the markup language. Especially if we have a number of translations which all have different extensions in our markup language. Solution/Disquotationalism: It would integrate the foreign terms in its own language. We would then be allowed to cite.(Quine, 1953 b, 135. see above chap. IV II 129-30). Problem: If we integrate "/" and "", the solution which we obtained above may disappear. FieldVsLeeds: I fear that our objective - to exclude the indeterminacy in our own language- will not be reached.It even seems to be impossible for our scientific terms! e.g. the root –1/√-1/Brandom/Field: The indeterminacy is still there; We can simply use the "first class" markup language to say that -1 has two roots without introducing a name like "i" which shall stand for "one of the two". FieldVsLeeds: We can accept set theory without accepting its language as "first class". ((s) But the objective was to eliminate terms of set theory from the first class markup language and to limit "true of" and "refer" to the markup language.) Field: We are even able to do this if we accept Platonism (FieldVsPlatonism) : II 306 e.g. we take a fundamental theory T which has no vocabulary of set theory and only says that there is an infinite number of non-physical eternally existing objects and postulates the consistency of fundamental set theory. Consistency is then the basic term which is regulated by its own axioms and not defined by terms of set theory. (Field 1991). We then translate the language of set theory in T by accepting "set" as true of certain or all non-physical eternally existing objects and interpret "element of" in such a way that the normal axioms remain true. Then there are different ways to do this and they render different sentences true regarding the cardinality of the continuum. Then the continuum hypothesis has no particular truth value. (C.H. without truth value). Problem: If we apply mathematical applications to non-mathemtical fields, we do not only need consistency in mathematics but in other fields as well. And we should then assume that the corresponding theories outside mathematics can have a Platonic reformulation. 1. This would be possible if they are substituted by a nominal (!) theory. 2. The Platonic theorie could be substituted by the demand that all nominal consequences of T-plus-set theory are true. FieldVs: The latter looks like a cheap trick, but the selected set theory does not need to be the one deciding the cardinality of the continuum. The selected set theory for a physical or psychological theory need not to be compatible with the set theory of another domain. This shows that the truth of the metalanguage is not accepted in a parent frame of reference. It's all about instrumental usefulness. FieldVsLeeds: We cannot exclude indeterminacy - which surpasses vagueness- in our own language even if we concede its solution. But we do not even need to do this; I believe my solution is better. I 378 Truth/T-Theory/T-concept/Leeds: We now need to differentiate between a) Truth Theory (T-Theory) ((s) in the object language) and b) theories on the definition of truth ((s) metalinguistic) . Field: (1972): Thesis: We need a SI theory of truth and reference (that a Standard Interpretation is always available), and this truth is also obtainable. (LeedsVsStandard Interpretation/VsSI//LeedsVsField). Field/Leeds: His argument is based on an analogy between truth and (chemical)valence. (..+....) Field: Thesis: If it would have looked as if the analogy cannot be reduced, it would have been a reason to abandon the theory of valences, despite the theory's usefulness! Truth/Field: Thesis: (analogous to valence ): Despite all we know about the extension of the term, the term also needs a physicalistic acceptable form of reduction! Leeds: What Field would call a physicalistic acceptable reduction is what we would call the SI theory of truth: There always is a Standard Interpretation for "true" in a language. Field/Leeds: Field suggests that it is possible to discover the above-mentioned in the end. LeedsVsField: Let us take a closer look at the analogy: Question: Would a mere list of elements and numbers (instead of valences) not be acceptable? I 379 This would not be a reduction since the chemists have formulated the law of valences. Physikalism/Natural law/Leeds: Does not demand that all terms can be easily or naturally explained but that the fundamental laws are formulated in a simple way. Reduction/Leeds: Only because the word "valence" appears in a strict law there are strict limitations imposed on the reduction. Truth/Tarski/LeedsVsTarski: Tarski's Definitions of T and R do not tell us all the story behind reference and truth in English. Reference/Truth/Leeds: These relations have a naturalness and importance that cannot be captured in a mere list. Field/Reduction/Leeds: If we want a reduction à la Field, we must find an analogy to the law of valences in the case of truth, i.e. we need to find a law or a regularity of truth in English. Analogy/Field: (and numerous others) See in the utility of the truth definition an analogy to the law. LeedsVsField: However, the utility can be fully explained without a SI theory. It is not astonishing that we have use for a predicate P with the characteristic that"’__’ is P" and "__"are always interchangeable. ((s)>Redundancy theory). And this is because we often would like to express every sentence in a certain infinite set z (e.g. when all elements have the form in common.) ((s) "All sentences of the form "a = a" are true"), > Generalization. Generalization/T-Predicate/Leeds: Logical form: (x)(x e z > P(x)). Semantic ascent/Descent/Leeds: On the other hand truth is then a convenient term, same as infinite conjunction and disjunction. I 386 Important argument: In theory then, the term of truth would not be necessary! I believe it is possible that a language with infinite conjunctions and disjunctions can be learned. Namely, if conjunctions and disjunctions if they are treated as such in inferences. They could be finally be noted. I 380 Truth/Leeds: It is useful for what Quine calls "disquotation" but it is still not a theory of truth (T-Theory). Use/Explanation/T-Theory/Leeds: In order to explain the usefulness of the T-term, we do not need to say anything about the relations between language and the world. Reference is then not important. Solution/Leeds: We have here no T-Theory but a theory of the term of truth, e.g. a theory why the term is seen as useful in every language. This statement appears to be based solely on the formal characteristics of our language. And that is quite independent of any relations of "figure" or reference to the world. Reference/Truth/Truth term/Leeds: it shows how little the usefulness of the truth term is dependent on a efficient reference relation! The usefulness of a truth term is independent of English "depicts the world". I 381 We can verify it: Suppose we have a large fragment of our language, for which we accept instrumentalism, namely that some words do not refer. This is true for sociology, psychology, ethics, etc. Then we will find semantic ascent useful if we are speaking about psychology for example. E.g. "Some of Freud's theories are true, others false" (instead of using "superego"!) Standard Interpretation/Leeds: And this should shake our belief that T is natural or a standard. Tarski/Leeds: This in turn should not be an obstacle for us to define "T" à la Tarski. And then it is reasonable to assume that "x is true in English iff T (x)" is analytic. LeedsVsSI: We have then two possibilities to manage without a SI: a) we can express facts about truth in English referring to the T-definition (if the word "true" is used) or b) referring to the disquotional role of the T-term. And this, if the explanandum comprises the word "true" in quotation marks (in obliqua, (s) mentioned). Acquaintance/Russell/M. Williams: Meant a direct mental understanding, not a causal relation! This is an elder form of the correspondence theory. I 491 He was referring to RussellVsSkepticism: A foundation of knowledge and meaning FieldVsRussell/M. WilliamsVsRussell: das ist genau das Antackern des Begriffsschemas von außen an die Welt. Field/M. Williams: His project, in comparison, is more metaphysical than epistemic. He wants a comprehensive physicalistic overview. He needs to show how semantic characteristics fit in a physical world. If Field were right, we would have a reason to follow a strong correspondence theory, but without dubious epistemic projects which are normally linked to it. LeedsVsField/M. Williams: But his argument is not successful. It does not give an answer to the question VsDeflationism. Suppose truth cannot be explained in a physicalitic way, then it contradicts the demand that there is an unmistakable causal order. Solution: Truth cannot explain (see above) because we would again deal with epistemology (theory of knowledge).(>justification, acceptability). |
Leeds I Stephen Leeds "Theories of Reference and Truth", Erkenntnis, 13 (1978) pp. 111-29 In Truth and Meaning, Paul Horwich Aldershot 1994 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 |
| Friedman, M. | Fraassen Vs Friedman, M. | I 109 Theory/Fraassen: it could be argued that a theory as a whole needs to have more properties than just acceptability. Local Property/Theory/Friedman: E.g. that a theory explains a particular fact Global Property/Theory/Friedman: Science teaches more a global than a local understanding, it’s not about understanding individual phenomena. (FN 15). Explanation/Friedman: relation "theory T explains phenomenon P": in general regularities, which are represented by law-like sentences. I 110 K: is a set of law-like sentences (background theory) S: a candidate for an explanation (law, theory, hypothesis) of P P: can itself be represented by law-like sentences. Def Explanation/Friedman: S explains P iff. P is a consequence S, relative to K, and S "reduces" or "unifies" the set of its own consequences relative to K. Def Relative Consequence/Friedman/Fraassen: A is a consequence of B relative to K iff. A is consequence of a B and K together. FraassenVsFriedman: he has to modify the concept "reduces" in the following, and then he does not do anymore what Friedman needs. (FN 16). Explanation/Friedman/Fraassen: interesting about his approach: we evaluate an explanandum relative to a background K. 1) Suppose a theory contained additional information that is not law-like, E.g. the age of the universe (boundary condition), but of course it cannot contain all our knowledge. 2) relative to K implies that P (the sentence about the phenomenon) is true. I suppose that Friedman wants to weaken this Hempel-like condition in the sense of Salmon (The probability does not have to be high). 3) Problem: it is the character of K plus additional information, considered as a complex theory, that determines whether we have an explanation. ((s) I.e. it would depend on accidental previous knowledge or the age of the universe, if something is an explanation). |
Fr I B. van Fraassen The Scientific Image Oxford 1980 |
| Habermas, J. | Rorty Vs Habermas, J. | Brendel I 133 Justification/Rorty/Brendel: Thesis: truth is not its goal. That would suppose a false separation of truth and justification. There is also not the one scientific method that leads to the truth. Epistemic justification: can have many goals. Brendel I 134 Correspondence/RortyVsCorrespondence Theory/Rorty/Brendel: therefore there is no correspondence between statements and independent reality. Truth/RortyVsPutnam: is not idealized rational acceptability either. Reality/PutnamVsRorty: there is a consciousness independent reality. Truth/Peirce/Rorty/Brendel: Both: Thesis: there are no in principle unknowable truths. Reality/PeirceVsRorty: there is a reality that is independent of consciousness. Truth/Peirce/Brendel: obtained by the consensus of an ideal research community. Convergence/Peirce/Brendel: Thesis: there is a convergence of research. The corresponding true conviction expresses actually existing states of affairs. (Habermas ditto). Convergence/RortyVsPeirce: does not exist and therefore no universally valid convictions of an ideal research community. Brendel I 135 RortyVsHabermas: ditto. Communication/RortyVsHabermas/Rorty/Brendel: is not a pursuit of universally valid statements. Thesis: there is no difference in principle between a cooperative search for truth and the pursuit of group interests. Rorty II (b) 50 RortyVsHabermas: sounds as if he took over the metaphysical position, as if all the alternative candidates for belief and desire already exist and the only thing that must be ensured is that they can be freely discussed. Ahistorical universalist "transcendentalism". II (b) 29 French Philosophy/HabermasVsFrench: "the vexatious game of these duplications: a symptom of exhaustion." RortyVsHabermas: Rather signs of vitality. I read Heidegger and Nietzsche as good private philosophers, Habermas reads them as poor public ones. He treats them as if they targeted what he calls "universal validity." II (b) 43 Principle/Validity/Application/RortyVsHabermas: the question of the "internal validity" of the principles is not relevant. Especially not if it these are "universally valid". The only thing that keeps a society from having considering the institutionalized humiliation of the weak as norma, of course, is a detailed description of these humiliations. Such descriptions are given by journalists, anthropologists, sociologists, novelists, playwrights, filmmakers and painters. II (d) 94 Habermas/Rorty distinguishes between a strategic and a genuinely communicative use of language. Scale of degrees of confidence. II (d) 94/95 Rorty: if we stop to interpret reason as a source of authority, the Platonic and Kantian dichotomy between reason and emotion dissolves. II (d) 96 RortyVsHabermas: the idea of the "better argument" only makes sense if you can find a natural, transcultural relevance relationship. III 113 Foucault/Rorty: Society denies the space for self-creation and private projects. (VsHabermas). III 119 RortyVsHabermas: Habermas is more afraid of a "romantic revolution" like Hitler and Mao have brought about than of the stifling effect that encrusted societies may have. He is more afraid of autonomy than what Foucault calls the "biopower" of experts. >Biopower. III 120 RortyVsHabermas: I am very suspicious of the idea of 'universal validity' (metaphysics). This claim is no longer credible if we are convinced of the "contingency of language". III 231 Self/Literature/Appropriateness/RortyVsHabermas: for him the very traditional image of the self with its three spheres, the cognitive, the moral and the aesthetic, is of central importance. This classification means that he sees literature as a "matter for the appropriate expression of feelings" and literary criticism as a "matter of taste". III 232 Rorty: if we give up this classification, we will no longer ask questions like "Does this book promote truth or beauty?" "Does it promote proper behavior or pleasure?" and instead we will ask: "What is the purpose the book?" V 9 World/Language/RortyVsHabermas: Vsdemand that the world-disclosing (poetic) power of language (Heidegger, Foucault) should be subordinated to the inner-worldly practice. |
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 Bre I E. Brendel Wahrheit und Wissen Paderborn 1999 |
| Harman, G. | Putnam Vs Harman, G. | Harman II 421 Truth/HarmanVsPutnam: it is not merely idealized rational acceptability. It involves a relationship between a remark or a thought and the way how things are in the world. Putnam/Harman: is right when he equates the decisive point with a determination to the localization of all the facts in a world. Harman: when I suppose, thesis, there is one clear causal physical order, I ask myself the following questions: "What is the place of the mind in the physical world?", "What is the place of values in the world of facts?" I believe that it is a serious philosophical error, if we believe we can avoid these issues. PutnamVsHarman: a position as Harman's leads to two implausible conclusions: 1. Identity thesis of body and mind. (HarmanVs! I do not think that it follows from the assumption of a single causal order, rather to functionalism, that Putnam himself represented) 2. moral relativism. (Harman pro! There is nothing problematic). Harmans II 428 Truth/HarmanVsPutnam: I do not think that he would consider it as a good argument for the conclusion that truth is the same as >consistency: Problem: but then his argument does not show that truth is an idealization of rational acceptability. Harman II 434 Competence/Chomsky/Putnam: (Chomsky Syntactic Structures) promised us that there would be a normal form for grammars and a mathematical simplicity function that would explain everything precisely. Here you would have to look at various descriptions of the speaker's competence, which are given in the normal form, and measure the simplicity of every description, (with the mathematical function) in order to find the easiest. This would be "the" description of the speaker's competence. Putnam: actually Chomsky owes us also a mathematical function with which one measures the "goodness", with which the competence description fits with the actual performance. Chomsky/Putnam: the idea of mathematization has since been abandoned. The idea currently rests that the speaker's competence could be given by an idealization of the actual speaker's behavior, on an intuitive notion of a "best idealization" or "best explanation". Justification/PutnamVsChomskyPutnamVsHarman: to assume that the concept of justification could be made physicalistically through identification with what people should say in accordance with the description of their competence, is absurd. Harman II 435 Harman/Putnam: but would say that there is a difference whether one asks if the earth might have emerged only a few thousand years ago, Harman II 436 or whether one asks something moral, because there are no physical facts, which decide about it. PutnamVsHarman: if the metaphysical realism with Harman (and with Mackie) has to break, then the whole justification of the distinction facts/values is damaged. Interpretation/explanation/Putnam: our ideas of interpretation, explanation, etc. come from human needs as deep as ethical values. Putnam: then a critic might say of me, (even if he remains metaphysical realism): "All right, then explanation, interpretation and ethics are in the same boat" ("Companions in Guilt" argument). Putnam: and this is where I wanted it to be. That was my main concern in "truth, reason and history." (Putnam thesis explanation, interpretation and ethics are not in the same boat" ("companions in guilt" argument: in case of partial relativism the total relativism is near. PutnamVsHarman). Relativism/Putnam: There is no rational reason to support ethical relativism, but not at the same total relativism. Reference/Harman/Putnam: Harman's answer is that the world has a unique causal order. Harman II 437 PutnamVsHarman: but that does not help: if my linguistic competence is caused by E1, E2 ... , then it's true that it was caused* by E*1, E*2 ... whereby* the corresponding entity designates in a non-standard model. ((s)>Löwenheim) Problem: why is reference then determined by cause and not by cause*? Reference/Physicalism/Putnam: the only answer he could give, would be: "because it is the nature of reference". This would mean that nature itself picks out objects and places them in correspondence to our words. David Lewis/Putnam: has suggested something similar: ... + ... |
Putnam I Hilary Putnam Von einem Realistischen Standpunkt In Von einem realistischen Standpunkt, Vincent C. Müller Frankfurt 1993 SocPut I Robert D. Putnam Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community New York 2000 Harman I G. Harman Moral Relativism and Moral Objectivity 1995 Harman II Gilbert Harman "Metaphysical Realism and Moral Relativism: Reflections on Hilary Putnam’s Reason, Truth and History" The Journal of Philosophy, 79 (1982) pp. 568-75 In Theories of Truth, Paul Horwich Aldershot 1994 |
| Kant | Stroud Vs Kant | I 145 Def Reality/Real/(Kant: "whatever is connected with a perception according to empirical laws is real". (A 376)). I 146 StroudVsKant: but he does not go into detail how we can distinguish reality from appearance in individual cases where the question might arise. I 159 Skepticism/transcendental/StroudVsKant: does he really refute skepticism with his transcendental philosophy? Is it a better answer than others? 1. We can only understand his answer if we understand and accept his transcendental approach. We must then also accept his idealism. I 160 Understanding/Stroud: we should do best when we observe people and their behavior (>Behaviorism). But that would be an empirical study. It would be about language, language behaviour and language acquisition. StroudVsKant: we understand his argument only if we understand his concept of a priori knowledge. And this investigation presupposes that we accept transcendental idealism. That seems circular! (Circle): to understand idealism again, we must understand the particular nature of the investigation that makes idealism transcendental. I 161 2. StroudVsKant: (this would even be Kantian reasons VsKant): according to Kant, thoughts are only possible if they are applied to what categories can be applied to. But this is only possible within the framework of possible experiences. The concepts must be able to have an empirical application. ((s) So they must be learned in empiricism). StroudVsKant: then how is it possible that we can have (transcendental) thoughts at all that are not determined by empirical conditions? a) empirically: For example, if expressions such as "directly perceive" and "independently of us" are given in everyday empirical use, then we see ((s) according to Kant!) that the sentence "We perceive independent things directly" is true. Empirically understood this simply means: e.g. without mirrors or screens. b) transcendental: other language use: here the sentence "we perceive independent things directly" does not express truth. ((s) Beware, Stroud does not say that he is wrong according to Kant). StroudVsKant: with the transcendental meaning we thus move away from everyday language. KantVsStroud: would reply that this use must be understandable for us, otherwise knowledge about the world would not be possible. I 162 StroudVsKant: this leads to two problems: 1. Suppose we accepted Kant's transcendentalism: Question: why would the rejection of idealism at the transcendental level be more attractive than accepting it at the empirical level? Why does Kant reject empirical idealism? ((s) "Condition"/empirical/(s): a condition cannot be understood empirically. But their fulfilment > Fact. But one cannot see that a fact is supposed to fulfil something.) Solution: making a corresponding sentence true. (But this sentence must be expressed first). StroudVsKant: if the argument is that our knowledge would otherwise be limited to the things we know are dependent on us, why should we then seek "refuge" in the view that our knowledge is limited to things we have recognized as (transcendently spoken) dependent on us? Skepticism/StroudVsKant: is so painful precisely because it does not allow knowledge of independent things. Why should Kant's solution be less painful just because it is transcendental? Empirical Idealism/KantVsStroud: cannot be true. 2. Question about the strength of the guarantee that Kant's transcendentalism exists: This corresponds to the question why Kant rejects transcendental realism. KantVsTranscendental Realism: would not be a correct explanation of our knowledge because - if it were true - we could never directly perceive things independent of ourselves and therefore could never be certain of their existence. Transcendental realism thus opens the way for empirical idealism by perceiving external things as something separate from the senses. Problem: we can then be aware of our representations, but we do not know if something existing corresponds to them! StroudVsKant: he rejects these attitudes for the only reason for which transcendental explanations can be rejected at all: that they provide no explanation, how is it possible that we know something? StroudVsKant: why does he think that empirical idealism paves the way for transcendental realism? Probably because he believes that the only things we can directly perceive are the things that depend on us. And he does not assume this as an empirical thesis, but only as a transcendental one. The sentence "everything we perceive is dependent on us" is true when understood transcendently. Kant/Stroud: probably he assumes this because he does not understand how perception is possible without the perception of a "representation" or something "in us". StroudVsKant: this is how the thesis of the "epistemic priority" appears here again: I 164 shifted from the empirical to the transcendental level. Perception/Kant/Stroud: he can only accept direct perception of independent things empirically spoken because he does not accept them transcendently spoken. StroudVsKant: important: that this is the only point he rejects. Kant: if we treat external things as things in themselves, it is impossible to understand how we can arrive at knowledge. StroudVsKant: Suppose Kant were right that transcendental realism leaves our knowledge of external things unexplained. Question: why is that alone sufficient to make our theory wrong, transcendentally speaking? Couldn't it simply be transcendentally true that things cannot be known? Kant/Stroud: would say no, as he understands "transcendental" as following: transcendental knowledge is part of the explanation of our knowledge. Direct Perception/Kant: is only possible of dependent things (representations etc.). Transcendental Realism/Kant/Stroud: would then have to say that there are also independent things. Namely, those that correspond to these representations. But then we would be forced to conclude that all our representations (sensory experiences) would be inadequate to establish the reality of these things. (A 369). The outer things would then be separate from the things we are aware of. StroudVsKant: the only problem of transcendental realism is that it prevents our explanation of "how knowledge is possible". I 165 Problem: then there is no independent way to determine his truth or falsehood. The only test of his acceptability is whether he makes an explanation possible. Transcendental Aesthetics/Transcendental Idealism/Kant/Stroud: Transcendental idealism is integrated into transcendental aesthetics: (A 378), independent of these consequences. StroudVsKant: but it is not bound differently than transcendental or a priori as an a priori condition of an investigation of the conditions of possibility of knowledge. And this is the only way how a transcendental theory can be founded at all: that it is the only possible explanation of our synthetically a priori possible knowledge in geometry and arithmetic. Skepticism/StroudVsKant: so there is no independent possibility to justify a transcendental theory. ((s) than that it is the only explanation for something else). Then one has to ask whether skepticism has been refuted at all. I 166 Skepticism/StroudVsKant: there are at least two ways in which an explanation of our knowledge of the outer world can fail: If skepticism were true; Kant claims to have at least empirically refuted this, but only by putting in place a transcendental version of the same description. Understanding/StroudVsKant: if we understand transcendentalism (transcendental use of our words) at all, this use is not satisfactory. It still represents knowledge as limited to what I understand to be dependent on me. I am once again a prisoner of my subjectivity. Transcendental Idealism/StroudVsKant: is ultimately difficult to distinguish from skepticism. I.e. not that it is the same as empirical idealism, but that it is unsatisfactory as an explanation, namely on the empirical level! I 167 Transcendental Idealism/KantVsStroud/KantVsDescartes: Kant would say: "I won't lose anything if I accept it". My knowledge is not limited to the things that are empirically dependent or are only empirically subjective. I am theoretically able to deliver the best physics, chemistry and other sciences. I am in a better position than Descartes. StroudVsKant: but then, according to Kant, all our scientific knowledge is still subjective or dependent on our human sensitivity. I 168 Knowledge/Explanation/StroudVsKant: but we could also do without an explanation in another way: not because skepticism was true (and thus nothing could be explained), but because the general philosophical question cannot be conclusively posed! (>Carnap, see below). Kant/Stroud: N.B.: pleads in a way for a limited ("deflationary") view that corresponds to this critique. ((s) deflationary here: not aimed at the most comprehensive framework, see below). KantVsDescartes: if its question could be asked coherently, skepticism would be the only answer. Therefore, the question is illegitimate. StroudVsKant: but he does not explain what Descartes was concerned about. |
Stroud I B. Stroud The Significance of philosophical scepticism Oxford 1984 |
| Parsons, Ter. | Hilbert Vs Parsons, Ter. | I 37 Non-existent Objects/unrealized possibilities/HintikkaVsQuine/Hintikka: Thesis: there are non-existent objects in the real world. (>Possibilia). HintikkaVsQuine: the philosophers who reject it have thought too strongly in syntactic paths. Hintikka. Thesis: one must answer the question rather semantically (model theoretically). Fiction/Ryle: Test: is the paraphrase valid? Terence ParsonsVsRyle: Ryle's test is missing in cases like "Mr. Pickwick is a fiction". HintikkaVsParsons: the relevance of the criterion is questionable at all. I 38 Ontology/Language/linguistically/HintikkaVsRyle: how should linguistic questions such as paraphrasability decide on ontological status? Solution/Hintikka: for the question whether there are non-existent objects: Model theory. E.g. Puccini's Tosca: here the question is whether the soldiers have bullets in their gun barrels. ((s) sic, by Puccini, not by Verdi). N.B.: even if they did, they would only be fictitious! ((s) within history). ((s) I.e. so that the story can be told at all, one must assume that the corresponding sentence can be decided with "true" or "false", depending on whether there are bullets in the gun barrels. Otherwise the sentence would be incomprehensible.) Model Theory/Hintikka: provides a serious answer. ((s) "true in the model" means, in history it is true that bullets are in the gun barrels). HintikkaVsParsons: one should not argue too strongly syntactically, i.e. not only ask which conclusions may be drawn and which may not. Acceptance/Acceptability/Inferences/Hintikka: ask about the acceptability of inferences and of language and intuitions are syntactic. Singular Term/Ontological Obligation/Existence/Parsons: Parsons says that the use of singular terms obliges us to an existential generalization. And thus to a speaker. I.e. it is an obligation to an inference. HintikkaVsParsons. I 41 Non-existent Objects/possible object/unrealized possibilities/Hintikka: but are some of these non-existent objects not in our own actual world (real world)? Hintikka: Thesis: yes, some of these merely possible objects are in the real world. Bona fide object/Hintikka: can exist in one possible world and be missing in another. World line/Hintikka: when it comes to which ones can be drawn, existence is not the most important problem. Rather well-defined. HintikkaVsLeibniz: we also allow an object to exist in several possible worlds. Question: if inhabitants of two different possible worlds can be identical, when are they identical? I 42 Existential Generalisation/EG/HintikkaVsParsons: this shows that his criterion of the existential generalization is wrong, because it can fail for reasons that have nothing to do with non-existence. Example: (1) Queen Victoria knew that Lewis Carroll is Lewis Carroll one cannot infer from this, even though Caroll existed, and the Queen knew this, that (2) (Ex)Queen Victoria knew that Lewis was Carroll x. And therefore (3) Someone is such that Queen Victoria knew he was Lewis Carroll. (2) and (3) say the same thing as (4) Queen Victoria knew who Lewis Carroll was. But this is not entailed by (1). Existential Generalization/EG/Hintikka: the equivalence of (2)-(3) with (4) is completely independent of whether the quantifiers only go over existing or also over non-existent objects. The reason for the failure of the existential generalization is not a failure of unambiguousness. However, unambiguousness fails, because in different situations it is compatible with the Queen's knowledge, the name Lewis Carroll can be applied to different persons. Therefore, not only a single, particular object can function as a value of "x". Therefore, the existential generalization does not apply and (1) and yet it can be understood as committing the external to the existence of Lewis Carroll. Therefore, Parson's criterion fails. |
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| Popper, K. | Rescher Vs Popper, K. | I 229 Correspondence is fundamental to definition - coherence is fundamental to criteria. Proposition: can be true or false. Judgement/Rescher: can be correct, incorrect or undecided. I 340 According to this distinction there is a correspondence theory of truth and falsity of propositions and a coherence theory of correctness, incorrectness or indecision of judgements. Criterion/Popper: all criterion-related truth theories must be classified as subjective. I 380f VsPopper: the epistemic criterion of conditions of acceptability does not raise questions about a way to truth about a "particular state of mind or disposition or belief". A criterion-based approach to accepting does not need to refer to any psychological beliefs or subjective conditions of acceptance. For example, the rule-based calculation test does not depend on psychological mechanisms. I 341 Rescher: this is not about what is true or false, but about what is justifiably considered to be true. Definitions and criteria are very close here. With some things there is no difference at all. For example, what is a chair? For others, there is a difference: for example, what is an unsolvable problem? Difference guaranteeing criterion - qualifying (authorizing) criterion. The problem arises with the question: "what is the relationship between corresponds to the criterion for X and is actually an X? Def guaranteeing criterion: logically excludes the absence of the required characteristics. Decides completely about the characteristics. Example triangularity is a guarantee of the criterion for triangularity. Def qualifying criterion: if the fulfillment of the criterion represents at best a rational justification. Presumed confirmation. |
Resch I Nicholas Rescher The Criteriology of Truth; Fundamental Aspects of the Coherence Theory of Truth, in: The Coherence Theory of Truth, Oxford 1973 - dt. Auszug: Die Kriterien der Wahrheit In Wahrheitstheorien, Gunnar Skirbekk Frankfurt/M. 1977 Resch II N. Rescher Kant and the Reach of Reason: Studies in Kant’ s Theory of Rational Systematization Cambridge 2010 |
| Positivism | Putnam Vs Positivism | Fraassen I 83 Conjunction/theory/science/unified science/Fraassen: Problem: "conjunction-objection" (first probably by Putnam): a conjunction of theories must receive truth, but not empirical adequacy. Fraassen I 222 FN 5 Conjunction/theories/Putnam: his "conjunction-objection" was an argument for that there is no positivist substitute for the notion of truth. (Reference and understanding, 1978). In another context: Putnam: This argument states that an approach that says that what we are looking for is a kind of acceptability, without the property of deductive unity (deductive closure) to not meet the standards of scientific practice. Fraassen I 83 Two incompatible theories can each be empirically adequate for themselves. Putnam: this is what the anti-realism needs to take. Fraassen: it depends on a logical point with regard to truth and adequacy, which needs to be clarified: Problem: in the scientific practice the conjunction of two believed (accepted) theories does not need to be believed (accepted). E.g. the Bohr-Sommerfeld theory. Fraassen I 84 could not be put in accordance with the special theory of relativity (SR). One is a correction of the other. Conjunction/logic: of theories. A theory is a corpus of sentences. Each assertion (statement) A can be regarded as little theory, and there is a family of models F(A) in which A is true. F(T): the family of models in which the theory T is true, consists of precisely these models that exist to F(A) for every statement A, which are part of T. Definition logic/Fraassen: is the study of the functions that lead from statement (premises) to statements (conclusions) and receive truth. Truth/theory/Fraassen: because of the intimate relationship between the truth of a theory and the truth of their sentences, the sentence logic, which we all love, leads to a logic of theories. Truth/Fraassen: is (as opposed to empirical adequacy) no global property of theories ((s) not all sentences must be true. Question: But has the theory as a whole to be empirically adequate?). Empirical adequacy/Fraassen: contrast is (unlike truth) a global property of theories. That is, there is no general pattern of statements (statements) so that when all statements (propositions) of the theory each have this characteristic in themselves, then the theory is empirically adequate. This can only be explained by the fact that theories are families of models, of which each has a particular family of substructures that correspond to possible phenomena (empirical substructures). Problem: because empirical meaning (empirical import) of a theory cannot be syntactically isolated, we need to define empirical adequacy directly without empirical detour. Empirical adequacy/Fraassen. Therefore, it makes no sense to ask about the empirical adequacy of individual statements, or about a logic of syntactical features of premises to conclusions that include empirical adequacy. Empirical adequacy/Fraassen: from a single statement it can only be determined in relation to a theory: contains F(A) at least one of the models, Fraassen I 85 which has this privileged status in the world? Problem: unlike with the truth, here the answer "yes" can be in relation to a theory and "no" in relation to another theory. --- Putnam I (a) 46 PutnamVsPositivism: one can easily construct a positivist theory that leads to successful predictions that no scientist could accept. --- I (c) 78 RealismVsPositivism: must leave it unexplained, that "electron calculi", "spacetime calculi" and "DNA calculi" correctly predict observable phenomena when there are no electrons, curved spacetime and no DNA molecules in reality. I (c) 79 The positivist has as a reply reductionist theories and theories of explanation, etc. --- I (h) 215 Truth/Positivism: what definition of "degree of confirmation" one accepts, is ultimately conventional, a question of purpose. I (h) 216 Ultimately, then, it is completely subjective. ((s) But not yet, when purposes are social). PutnamVsPositivism: so it ends as relativism. He can only avoid deductive inconsistency by agreeing that judgements are not rational. He has no response to the philosopher who says: VsPositivism: "I know what you mean, but positivism is not rational in my system." |
Putnam I Hilary Putnam Von einem Realistischen Standpunkt In Von einem realistischen Standpunkt, Vincent C. Müller Frankfurt 1993 SocPut I Robert D. Putnam Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community New York 2000 Fr I B. van Fraassen The Scientific Image Oxford 1980 |
| Putnam, H. | Field Vs Putnam, H. | III 113 Pure Mathematics/Putnam: should be interpreted in a way that it asserts the possible existence of physical structures that satisfy the mathematical axioms. FieldVsPutnam: pure mathematics should not be interpreted at all. I 211 Properties/Relations/Putnam: (1970): are predicative, according to them we have a few basic physical prop and rel from which all others are derived: 1st order: Allows no reference to a totality of physical objects when a new property is constructed. 2nd order: Allows reference to the totality of the properties of the 1st order. 3rd order: Allows reference to the totality of the properties of the 1st and 2nd order. - Every physical property appears on any level of the hierarchy -> functionalism. Functional properties are 2nd or higher order properties - the prop that the role has may differ from person to person. I 214 FieldVsPutnam: instead of properties provide instantiations of properties with steps. I 268 Mathematics/Ontology/Putnam: ("Mathematics without foundations", 1976b, 1975 "What is mathematical truth?"): Field: Putnam Thesis: the mathematical realist does not have to accept the "mathematical object picture". He can formulate his views in purely modal terms. And that not as an alternative, but only as another formulation of the same view. I 269 Indispensability Argument/Putnam: appear in the subsequent text. Field: If "Mathematics as a modal" logic was really an equivalent description of mathematics in terms of mathematical objects (MO), then it should also be possible to reformulate the Indispensability Argument so that there is a prima facie argument for one or the other kind of modalized mathematics and mathematical objects. FieldVsPutnam: but Section 6 and 7 show that we cannot formulate the indispensability argument like that: it requires MO and modalized mathematics does not bring them forth. VSVs: but beware: I have not studied all the possibilities. I 269 FieldVsPutnam: his mathematical realism seems puzzling: Mathematics/Ontology/Putnam: Thesis: there is a modal translation of pure mathematics: he presents a translation procedure that turns mathematical statements into modal statements, one that transforms acceptable mathematical statements (E.g. axioms of set theory) into true modal assertions that include no quantification, unless it is modalized away. (I.e. no mathematical entities (ME) in the modal statements). I 270 FieldVsPutnam: two general questions: 1) what kind modality is involved here? 2) what benefit is the translation to have? ad 1): Putnam thinks that the "object-image" (the starting position) and its modal translation are equivalent at a deeper level. FieldVs: that’s really not interesting: "mathematically possible" should coincide with "logically possible" in any reasonable view (this is stated by conservatism). ((s) contrary to the above). Important argument: if A is not mathematically possible, then "~A" is a consequence of mathematics - i.e. if A (and then also its negation) are purely non-mathematically, then "~A" is logically true. If Putnam now says that his modal translation involves a "strong and clear mathematical sense of possibility", then a mathematical possibility operator must be applied to sentences that contain ME. However, such a sentence A could also be a mixed sentence (see above, with purely mathematical and purely physical components). I 271 FieldVsPutnam: for purely mathematical sentences mathematical possibility and truth coincide! But then the "modal translations" are just as ontologically committed as the mathematical assertions. FieldVs"Mathematical Possibility"/FieldVsPutnam: we had better ignore it. Maybe it was about 2nd order logical possibility as opposed to 1st order for Putnam? I 271 FieldVsPutnam: what benefits does his modal translation have? Does it provide a truth transfer (as opposed to the transmission of mere acceptability)? And what value has it to say that the mathematical statements are both true and acceptable? Etc. Mathematics/Realism/Putnam/Field: Putnam describes himself as "mathematical realist": Difference to Field’s definition of realism: he does not consider ME as mind-independent and language-independent, but (1975): Putnam: you can be a realist without being obliged to mathematical objects. I 272 The question is the one that Kreisel formulated long ago: the question of the objectivity of mathematics and not the question the existence of mathematical objects. FieldVsPutnam: this is puzzling. I 277 Model Theory/Intended Model/Putnam/Field: this morality can be strengthened: there is no reason to consider "∈" as fixed! Putnam says that in "Models and Reality": the only thing that could fix the "intended interpretation" would be the acceptance of sentences that contain "∈" through the person or the community. Putnam then extends this to non-mathematical predicates. ((s)> Löwenheim-Skolem). FieldVsPutnam: this is misleading: it is based on the confusion of the view that the reference is determined, E.g. by causal reasoning with the view that it is defined by a description theory (description theory, (labeling theory?), in which descriptions (labels?) that contain the word "cause" should play a prominent role. (> Glymour, 1982, Devitt, 1983, Lewis 1984). |
Field I H. Field Realism, Mathematics and Modality Oxford New York 1989 Field IV Hartry Field "Realism and Relativism", The Journal of Philosophy, 76 (1982), pp. 553-67 In Theories of Truth, Paul Horwich Aldershot 1994 |
| Putnam, H. | Nagel Vs Putnam, H. | I 25 NagelVsPutnam: has always been flirting with subjectivism. I 132 Internal realism fails because of its own test of rational acceptability. What we actually accept is a worldview that confirms or refutes our perceptions. Even our interpretation of the quantum theory and the related observations would be a view on the suchness of the world, even if a physicist says it could not be interpreted realistically. It would not be a view that would rightly be restricted by means of an "internalist" interpretation. Our point of view is a set of beliefs that affect the real suchness, while it is being admitted that we do not know many things. The only method of determining the rational acceptability is thinking about whether it is true. With all the evidence and arguments, and considering all the things that are cited by others as relevant. Nagel: we must not equate acceptability with truth, otherwise we would rob both terms of any content. Internal Realism/Putnam: internal realism should not contain any reduction of truth to epistemic terms, truth and acceptability are interdependent. NagelVsPutnam: that is not clear. Putnam seems to be making concessions lately, however, see his explanation for why Wittgenstein was not a relativist: a position outside the language game is something else than participating in the language game itself. Putnam: but why should metalanguage be so sure of itself?" I 133 Brand: the belief that the world is organized is quite confirmed in a number of areas, namely: if they predict observations that, in turn, cannot be explained by our belief in these hypotheses. The "theory ladenness" of the observation in my opinion is of little importance. |
NagE I E. Nagel The Structure of Science: Problems in the Logic of Scientific Explanation Cambridge, MA 1979 Nagel I Th. Nagel The Last Word, New York/Oxford 1997 German Edition: Das letzte Wort Stuttgart 1999 Nagel II Thomas Nagel What Does It All Mean? Oxford 1987 German Edition: Was bedeutet das alles? Stuttgart 1990 Nagel III Thomas Nagel The Limits of Objectivity. The Tanner Lecture on Human Values, in: The Tanner Lectures on Human Values 1980 Vol. I (ed) St. M. McMurrin, Salt Lake City 1980 German Edition: Die Grenzen der Objektivität Stuttgart 1991 NagelEr I Ernest Nagel Teleology Revisited and Other Essays in the Philosophy and History of Science New York 1982 |
| Putnam, H. | Rorty Vs Putnam, H. | McDowell I 175 Coherence Theory/Rorty pro Davidson: Beliefs: can a) be seen from the outside, perspective of the field researcher, causal interactions with the surroundings - b) from the inside, from the perspective of the natives, as rules of action. The inside view is normative, in the space of reasons. RortyVsPutnam: he attempts to somehow think this together. >Exterior/interior, Coherence Theory. McDowell I 178 RortyVsPutnam: By an "explanation of X" Putnam still understands a synopsis, the synthesis of external and internal position. Representatives of >disquotation believe that people could only be described in a behavioral manner. But why should it be impossible to consider supplements by normative representations? (Putnam's philosophy was ultimately traditional). Causality/Putnam: the desire to tell a story about the causal relationships of human pronouncements and environment does not rule out that a story is invented according to which the speakers express thoughts and make assertions, and try not to make mistakes. But these stories may then be indistinguishable! (PutnamVsRorty) Rorty Thesis: from a causal standpoint we cannot subdue our beliefs to standards of investigation. >Causality/Putnam, >Causality/Rorty. Rorty I 304 RortyVsPutnam: he provokes a pseudo-controversy between an "idealistic" and realistic theory of meaning. I 307 Putnam/Rorty: follows 3 thoughts: 1) against the construction of 'true' as synonymous with 'justified assertibility' (or any other "soft" concept to do with justification). This is to show that only a theory of the relationship between words and the world can give a satisfactory meaning of the concept of truth. 2) a certain type of sociological facts requires explanation: the reliability of normal methods of scientific research, the usefulness of our language as a means, and that these facts can be explained only on the basis of realism. 3) only the realist can avoid the inference from "many of the terms of the past did not refer" to "it is very likely that none of the terms used today refers". >Reference/Putnam. I 308 RortyVsPutnam: that is similar to the arguments of Moore against all attempts to define "good": "true, but not assertible" with reason" makes just as much sense as "good, but not conducive to the greatest happiness". I 312 Theoretical Terms/TT/Reference/Putnam/Rorty. We must prevent the disastrous consequence that no theoretical term refers to anything (argument 3), see above). What if we accepted a theory according to which electrons are like phlogiston? We would have to say that electrons do not exist in reality. What if this happened all the time? Of course, such a conclusion must be blocked. Granted desideratum of reference theory. I 313 RortyVsPutnam: puzzling for two reasons: 1) unclear from which philosophical standpoint it could be shown that the revolutionary transformation of science has come to an end. 2) even if there were such a standpoint, it remains unclear how the theory of reference could ever provide it. I 314 In a pre-theoretical sense we know very well that they have referred to such things. They all tried to cope with the same universe. I 315 Rorty: We should perhaps rather regard the function of an expression as "picking of entities" than as "description of reality". We could just represent things from the winning perspective in a way that even the most primitive animists talked about the movement of molecules and genes. This does not appease the skeptic who thinks that perhaps there are no molecules, but on the other hand it will also be unable to make a discovery about the relations between words and the world. Reference/Rorty: Dilemma: either we a) need the theory of reference as a guarantor of the success of today's science, or b) the reference theory is nothing more than a decision about how to write the history of science (rather than supplying its foundation.) I 319 Reference/RortyVsPutnam/RortyVsKripke: if the concept of "really talking about" is confused with the concept of reference, we can, like Kripke and Putnam, easily get the idea that we have "intuitions" about the reference. Rorty: in my opinion, the problem does not arise. The only question of fact that exists here, relates to the existence or non-existence of certain entities that are being talked about. I 320 Fiction/Reference/RortyVsKripke/RortyVsPutnam: of course there can be no reference to fictions. This corresponds to the technical and scientific use. But then "reference" has basically nothing to do with "talking about", and only comes into play after the choice between different strategies is made. Reference is a technical term, and therefore we have no intuitions about it! Real existence issues are also not affected by the criterion of Searle and Strawson! What then is the right criterion? Rorty: there is none at all! We cannot talk about non-existent entities, but we can also find out that we have actually talked about them! Talking about X in reality and talking about a real X is not the same thing. I 324 Realism/PutnamVsPutnam/Self-Criticism/Rorty: metaphysical realism collapses at the point where it claims to be different from Peirce's realism. I.e. the assertion that there is an ideal theory. I 326 Internal Realism/Putnam/Rorty: position according to which we can explain the "mundane" fact that the use of language contributes to achieving our goals, to our satisfaction, etc. by the fact that "not language, but the speakers reflect the world, insofar as they produce a symbolic representation of their environment. (Putnam). By means of our conventions we simply represent the universe better than ever. RortyVsPutnam: that means nothing more than that we congratulate ourselves to having invented the term lithium, so that lithium stands for something for which nothing has stood all the time. I 327 The fact that based on our insights we are quite capable of dealing with the world, is true but trivial. That we reasonably reflect it is "just an image". Rorty V 21 Analytic/Synthetic/Culture/Quine/Rorty: the same arguments can also be used to finish off the anthropological distinction between the intercultural and the intra-cultural. So we also manage without the concept of a universal transcultural rationality that Putnam cites against relativists. V 22 Truth/Putnam: "the very fact that we speak of our different conceptions of rationality sets a conceptual limit, a conceptual limit of the ideal truth." RortyVsPutnam: but what can such a limit do? Except for introducing a God standpoint after all? Rorty VI 75 Idealization/Ideal/Confirmation RortyVsPutnam: I cannot see what "idealized rational acceptability" can mean other than "acceptability for an ideal community". I.e. of tolerant and educated liberals. (>Peirce: "community of researchers at the ideal end of the research"). VI 76 Peirce/Terminology: "CSP" "Conceptual System Peirce" (so called by Sellars). Idealization/Ideal/Confirmation/RortyVsPutnam: since forbids himself to reproduce the step of Williams back to approaching a single correct result, he has no way to go this step a la Peirce! VI 79 Human/Society/Good/Bad/Rorty: "we ourselves with our standards" does not mean "we, whether we are Nazis or not", but something like "language users who, by our knowledge, are improved remakes of ourselves." We have gone through a development process that we accept as rational persuasion. VI 80 This includes the prevention of brainwashing and friendly toleration of troublemakers à la Socrates and rogues à la Feyerabend. Does that mean we should keep the possibility of persuasion by Nazis open? Yes, it does, but it is no more dangerous than the possibility to return to the Ptolemaic worldview! PutnamVsRorty: "cope better" is not a concept according to which there are better or worse standards, ... it is an internal property of our image of justification, that a justification is independent of the majority ... (Rorty: I cannot remember having ever said that justification depends on a majority.) RortyVsPutnam: "better" in terms of "us at our best" less problematic than in terms of "idealized rational acceptability". Let's try a few new ways of thinking. VI 82 Putnam: what is "bad" supposed to mean here, except in regard to a failed metaphysical image? VI 87 Truth/Putnam: we cannot get around the fact that there is some sort of truth, some kind of accuracy, that has substance, and not merely owes to "disquotation"! This means that the normative cannot be eliminated. Putnam: this accuracy cannot apply only for a time and a place (RortyVsPutnam). VI 90 Ratio/Putnam: the ratio cannot be naturalized. RortyVsPutnam: this is ambiguous: on the one hand trivial, on the other hand, it is wrong to say that the Darwinian view leaves a gap in the causal fabric. Ratio/Putnam: it is both transcendent and immanent. (Rorty pro, but different sense of "transcendent": going beyond our practice today). RortyVsPutnam: confuses the possibility that the future transcends the present, with the need for eternity to transcend time. |
Rorty I Richard Rorty Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, Princeton/NJ 1979 German Edition: Der Spiegel der Natur Frankfurt 1997 Rorty VI Richard Rorty Truth and Progress, Cambridge/MA 1998 German Edition: Wahrheit und Fortschritt Frankfurt 2000 McDowell I John McDowell Mind and World, Cambridge/MA 1996 German Edition: Geist und Welt Frankfurt 2001 McDowell II John McDowell "Truth Conditions, Bivalence and Verificationism" In Truth and Meaning, G. Evans/J. McDowell |
| Relativism | Putnam Vs Relativism | V 163 VsRelativism: it is obviously contradictory to represent a point of view, while one simultaneously claimes that no position is justified to a greater extent than any other. And if, any position is good as much as any other, why should the position that relativism is false, not be worth as much as another point of view? ((s) The Relativism has to put itself as absolutism). Relativism, modern form/VsVs: given the overabundance of relativistic theories that are thrown today on the market by clever people that seems insufficient. Why would an intelligent relativism admit that (for it) any other view is as true as any other? It cannot let you deter, to say that its view is not true for you, but it can respond that truth means for yourself much less (for it) than truth for it. It is important to note that if everything is relative, also the Relative is relative. --- V 166 Relativism/Putnam: could make the idea his own, that truth is the idealization of rational acceptability. ("If I only watch myself carefully enough"). But unreal conditional clauses (counterfactual conditionals, co.co.) are interpreted differently by different philosophers. VsRelativism: if now the relativist interprets statements about what he would think under such and such circumstances, in this realistic way, he would have stopped being the relativist, because he would have recognized a class of absolute truths. PutnamVsRelativism: when he claims that even in one's own case, one could not differentiate between being entitled to and believing being entitled to, then what is speaking except the generation of noise to generate feelings at its best? The relativist must ultimately deny that a thought invloves something. VsRelativism: the relativist overlooks the fact that it is a requirement of his own thinking itself, that there is such a thing as objective "accuracy". --- V 217 Relativism/Foucault/Ethnology: Foucault argues quite different than the ethnologists: he does not argue that earlier practices had more rationality, as it appears, but that all practices are less rational than we think. VsRelativism: falls into the trap of the conclusion, all rational argumentation is merely rationalization, to then keep trying to argue rationally for this position. --- V 22 VsRelativism: E.g. trough aggression and fantasy people can be inflamed, until all the people are getting bloodthirsty. But this does not show that all value judgments are irrational, but only that some are. --- PutnamVsRelativism: what relativist believes "true only for my subculture ...". |
Putnam I Hilary Putnam Von einem Realistischen Standpunkt In Von einem realistischen Standpunkt, Vincent C. Müller Frankfurt 1993 SocPut I Robert D. Putnam Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community New York 2000 |
| Rorty, R. | Putnam Vs Rorty, R. | McDowell I 178 Rorty: from the causal point of view we can not submit our beliefs to the standards of investigation. PutnamVsRorty: then it remains a mystery how there may be something as beliefs at all. A second point then does not help further if we do not allow into take account the causal interactions between people with beliefs and the object of their beliefs. Because then it remains a mystery how this second standpoint is to supply the standards. Putnam I (a) 21 Theory/Meaning/Putnam: there will always be different theorie but that does not matter as long as they use different terms. If they are empirically equivalent they make no difference to us. Representation/illustration/Rorty: the whole problem is misguided, a sham debate. PutnamVsRorty: this is precisely the attempt to take the position of God. Putnam I (h) 204/205 PutnamVsRorty: if there is such a thing as "a notion being worth it", then inevitably there is the question about the nature of this "correctness". Putnam: what makes speech more than a mere expression of our present subjectivity, is that it can be evaluated for the presence or absence of these features, whether one wants to call them "truth" or "correctness" or "being worth it" or whatever. Even if it is a property that is culturally relative. But that does not indemnify us of the responsibility to say which property is! Putnam I (i) 239 Metaphysics/Philosophy/Rorty/Putnam: for Rorty and the French whom he admired two notions seem to be thrilling: 1. The failure of our philosophical "foundations" is a failure of our whole culture, therefore we have to be philosophical revisionists. I (i) 240. Typical Rorty: he rejects the "realism/anti-realism debate" and the "emotion/cognition debate" by ridiculing the debate. PutnamVsRorty: when a controversy is "futile", it does not mean that the competing images are unimportant. I (i) 242 justified assertibility/PutnamVsRorty: is independent of the opinion of the majority, but that is not a fact of transcendent reality, but it's a feature of the concept of legitimacy. The majority can agree or disagree with legitimacy. By their practice relativists themselves have demonstrated that this is the case! RelativismusVs: could argue that was just a "bad feature of the ordinary concept of "legitimcy"". PutnamVsVs: what can be called "bad", if not in relation to a metaphysical notion behind? I (i) 242/243 A philosopher who refers to that (those exist), could claim that his own convictions are true, but not justified - such a philosopher would not refute her*himself. However, it is a pragmatic inconsistency of her*his position: PutnamVsRelativismus/PutnamVsRealismus: both claim they can be simultaneously inside and outside of language! Realism does not immediately refute itself since it adopts a "perspective of God" anyway. But relativism refutes itself. Norms/values/Rorty: (1985) the improvements are not better with respect to a previously known state, but only better in the sense that now they clearly appear better than their predecessors. Norms/values/PutnamVsRorty: this is not a clarification of the concept of "improvement". I (i) 243/244 As Rorty normally speaks of Western cultural community, it could be that those gain the upper hand, who think that we "cope best" with Holcaust. ((s) "Coping better" does not seem to have been used by Rorty himself.) PutnamVsRorty: "coping better" is a question of how something appears to us and is not at all the notion of better and worse norms and standards. But standards and their image are logically independent! Therefore, it makes sense to say that what most consider to be an improvement, is in fact not. Discourse/Rorty: (Mirror of Nature) distinguishes between "normal" and "hermeneutic" discourse. normal: in compliance with the relevant standards and norms of a culture. hermeneutic: will attempt to bridge a gap of paradigms in case of unsolvable disagreements. I (i) 244/245 PutnamVsRorty: uses "true" and "reasonable" in an emotional way. This is rhetoric. Why? As is known, Mussolini was pro pragmatism: supports thoughtless activism. R.B. Perry, 1936). If tolerance and an open society are our goal, would it not be better to argue directly for them, than to hope they were byproducts of a change of the metaphysical image? PutnamVsRorty: probably he thinks that metaphysical realism is wrong. But he can not say it! Behind this disguise there is the attempt to say from the perspective of God that there is no perspective of God. Rorty VI 79 Human/society/good/bad/Rorty: "we ourselves with our standards" does not mean "we, whether we are Nazis or not", but something like "language users, who by our knowledge became improved remakes of ourselves." We have gone through a development process that we accept as rational persuasion. VI 80 This includes the prevention of brainwashing and friendly toleration of troublemakers à la Socrates and rogues à la Feyerabend. Does that mean we should keep open the possibility of persuasion by Nazis? Yes, it is, but is no more dangerous than the possibility of returning to the Ptolemaic worldview! PutnamVsRorty: "coping better" is not a concept, according to which there are better or worse norms, ... it is an internal property of our notion of justification, that justification be independent of the majority ... (Rorty: I can not remember having ever said justification is dependent on a majority.) RortyVsPutnam: "better" in relation to "us at its best" less problematic than in relation to "idealized rational acceptability". Let's try a few new ways of thinking. VI 82 Putnam: what is "bad" supposed to mean here. Except in regard to a mistaken metaphysical image? |
Putnam I Hilary Putnam Von einem Realistischen Standpunkt In Von einem realistischen Standpunkt, Vincent C. Müller Frankfurt 1993 McDowell I John McDowell Mind and World, Cambridge/MA 1996 German Edition: Geist und Welt Frankfurt 2001 McDowell II John McDowell "Truth Conditions, Bivalence and Verificationism" In Truth and Meaning, G. Evans/J. McDowell Rorty I Richard Rorty Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, Princeton/NJ 1979 German Edition: Der Spiegel der Natur Frankfurt 1997 Rorty VI Richard Rorty Truth and Progress, Cambridge/MA 1998 German Edition: Wahrheit und Fortschritt Frankfurt 2000 |
| Theory Ladenness | Wright Vs Theory Ladenness | I 204 Fashionable Thought/Realism/Theory/Science/WrightVs: every observation is "theory laden". Perception/Theory: 1. Observation equals perception, and perception is to be distinguished from mere sensory perception, because it is conceptually coined. (McDowell pro). This now provides a good basis for the view that the conceptual equipment of the subjects is different. I 205 2. Every pre-philosophical utterance about the material world reaches beyond experience in an infinite number of ways. 3. The coverage of terms does not consist merely in classifying. They contain the possession of beliefs. (e.g. that things form a species at all). WrightVs: that is certainly all right. The purpose of the idea of theoreticity of observation should not, however, be to question the opposition between data and theory. I 206 Concept/Wright: a) Beliefs should not be assumed a priori for the concepts. This is not appropriate. Concepts are constantly in danger of being refuted by experience. b) The everyday content of experience is not an obstacle for pre-theoretical data. It can always happen that one agrees to an experience pattern against his background beliefs, even if this can be cancelled later again. Theoreticity of Contemplation/Theory/Wright: 4. The kind of theory ladenness needed to get the distinction data/theory into difficulties is rather the following(see above): It must be shown that the conditions for assertion (assertibility) are necessarily a function not only of the content of the report and the quality of the input experiences, but also a function of collateral empirical beliefs. I 207 WrightVsTheoreticity of Observation/VsTheory Ladenness/Wright: if all observation theory is laden, there are no statements to which any subject is obliged to agree. (So no "synthetic" statements in the sense of Two Dogmas, final section). Wright: the justified assertiveness is rather a four-digit relation between: Statement - Subject - Course of Experience - Background Assumptions. I 208 Theory/Observation: Example A and B disagree on the stature of a theory Ho based on the observation Oo. B evaluates the same observations under a theory H1. A agrees that if H1 is accepted, his experience does not give enough reasons to accept Oo. Then it is not about vagueness, it is about status. This status question continues now, if it is about H1 instead of Ho: B accepts H1 because of O1, but A represents a theory H2...(I 209+) about O1. I 209 The other agrees that, if the other theory applies, the reaction of the other is appropriate. Divergence on each point, but agreement on conditional acceptability. I 210 We determine that the respective observation reports are correct in terms of experience and background theory. If everyone works with incorrect data, the result is that they create their reports in the context of an incorrect background theory. If he works with materially incomplete data, he necessarily works with a true background theory, which he does not agree with! Problem: can it be certainly considered a priori that there are nevertheless cognitive deficits regarding the theoretical background obligations? (Can only mean that one accepts a wrong theory). Evidence: whether a theory is erroneous or flawless must now (see above) at least in principle be recognizable! Such a confirmation, however, could ultimately only be provided by independently credible data. (VsTheory-ladenness of observation). I 211 However, the example shows the possibility that this remains undecidable. Vs: the relationship between experience and observation reports can plausibly be described as that of a "positive presumption". I.e. it is not as if experience tends to confirm or refute a report only in the context of appropriate empirical background beliefs, there is rather a Def default relation of confirmation between experiences and statements. Example "That star is of yellowish color" is a default justification insofar as it concerns the color. An appropriate justification by experience can be overridden in the context of appropriate background beliefs, but is otherwise presumably valid. ((s) As long as nothing else "appears"). Question: can one now assume cognitive deficiency after all? A theorist who accepts O n 1 may either do so because of his ignorance of this support for Hn, or he may prejudice the validity of the evidence. If now there is no other support for Hn, the assumption of Hn by the first theorist remains unjustified, and the denial in law. I 212 VsVs: this does not take into account that the regress of theories can interlock backwards. Therefore, one cannot claim that both theorists are to blame either for defending unsupported theories or for being cognitively deficient. Problem: Evidence/Theory/Observation: if the truth is limited by evidence and all observation is theory laden, then differences of opinion cannot certainly be traced back to cognitive deficiencies. |
WrightCr I Crispin Wright Truth and Objectivity, Cambridge 1992 German Edition: Wahrheit und Objektivität Frankfurt 2001 WrightCr II Crispin Wright "Language-Mastery and Sorites Paradox" In Truth and Meaning, G. Evans/J. McDowell Oxford 1976 WrightGH I Georg Henrik von Wright Explanation and Understanding, New York 1971 German Edition: Erklären und Verstehen Hamburg 2008 |
| Verificationism | Putnam Vs Verificationism | Danto I 75 Verificationism: radical variant: meaning lies literally in the verification. (PutnamVs verificationism: E.g. The meaning of "Gold" for goldsmiths is then different.) VII 440 Trancendental idealism/Kant/Putnam: thesis: the notion I propose instead is not quite like Kant's trancendental idealism, but similarly truth = idealized rational acceptability. PutnamVsVerificationism: this kind of idealism is not verificationism: it demands that one claims that sentences about the past be understood by asking how we would verify them in the future. Truth/Putnam: Thesis: all I claim is that what is assumed to be "true" must be "justifiable" for rational and reasonable beings based on experience and comprehension (intelligence). VII 441 Putnam: the notion which I point out is only a notion and not a theory. Theory: in order to establish a theory, I would have to at least come up with a theory of idealized warrant. Problem: I think that's not even feasible for actual justification. |
Putnam I Hilary Putnam Von einem Realistischen Standpunkt In Von einem realistischen Standpunkt, Vincent C. Müller Frankfurt 1993 SocPut I Robert D. Putnam Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community New York 2000 Danto I A. C. Danto Connections to the World - The Basic Concepts of Philosophy, New York 1989 German Edition: Wege zur Welt München 1999 Danto III Arthur C. Danto Nietzsche as Philosopher: An Original Study, New York 1965 German Edition: Nietzsche als Philosoph München 1998 Danto VII A. C. Danto The Philosophical Disenfranchisement of Art (Columbia Classics in Philosophy) New York 2005 |
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| Disputed term/author/ism | Pro/Versus |
Entry |
Reference |
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| Verificationalism | Davidson II 18 All verification theories assume the verifiability of the relationship. a) Strongest Version: one understands a sentence , if one knows that it is true. b) weaker: Understanding tied to knowledge of the verification process. (Dummett, Vienna Circle). Or acceptability: Putnam and Habermas). Thesis: someone understands a sentence, when he knows how it can be verified or when it will be accepted as true. |
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 |
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| Deflationism | Pro | Horwich I 492 Leeds: Vs substantial role of truth (e.g. truth as an explanation,> acceptability, epistemic point of view) - Leeds per deflationism - Horwich per |
Horwich I P. Horwich (Ed.) Theories of Truth Aldershot 1994 |
| Deflationism | Neutral | Horwich I 501 Correspondence theory / Putnam: early: per - later: PutnamVs correspondence theory: instead. internal realism. that is, Truth as an ideal rational acceptability - regardless of deflationism. |
Horwich I P. Horwich (Ed.) Theories of Truth Aldershot 1994 |
| Correspondence Theory | Versus | Horwich I 501 Correspondence theory / Putnam: early: per - later: PutnamVsKorrespondenztheorie: instead: internal realism. that is, Truth as an ideal rational acceptability - "regardless of deflationism" |
Horwich I P. Horwich (Ed.) Theories of Truth Aldershot 1994 |
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The author or concept searched is found in the following 5 theses of the more related field of specialization.
| Disputed term/author/ism | Author |
Entry |
Reference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Non-Factualism | Field, Hartry | I 21 Field: thesis: the most natural conclusion is that topological spaces, numbers, ordered pairs and functions neither are definitely sets nor definitely no sets. There is no fact that decides! II 243 Nonfactualism: Thesis: the actual world contains no "normative facts". II 256 Nonfactualism: thesis in case of an epistemic impossibility of the antecedent of a conditional there is no question of acceptability ((s) > assertibility?). |
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| Epistemology | Goodman, N. | Geach IV 179 Epistemology/GoodmanVsEpistemology: Thesis: an unconscious preference for stupidity is characteristic of both internalist and externalist epistemology. It stems from the common belief that a) our epistemic objective is to accept or believe a proposition when it is true. And b) that the standard of acceptability cannot be set too high, otherwise skepticism will prevail. IV 200f Goodman Thesis: I believe that Holmes' predicament shows that knowledge of how contemporary theories conceive it is not and should not be our primary cognitive objective. For to understand it this way would mean to devalue cognitive abilities, sensitivity, breadth and depth of understanding, and other things. What is missing is a far-reaching study of cognitive excellence. |
Gea I P.T. Geach Logic Matters Oxford 1972 |
| Theory of Sense | McDowell, J. | II 42 McDowell: Thesis: wants a theory of sense (ST), (Theory of sense) which is at the same time a meaning theory. A theory of sense ascribes a suitable property first to the components and establishes rules according to which the whole proposition is then true or false. Then it shows how for an indicative proposition a theorem of the form "s is true if and only if p" whereby "s" is replaced by an appropriate description of the sentence and "p" by a sentence. EMD II 43 It would be nice to have a general condition for the relation between the substitutions for "s" and "p" of this form: "s is f if and only if p". The hope is then that one replaces "f" with "true" by the general rule. That would seem to be the desired answer to what a truth theory is. II 44 McDowell: Thesis: a theory of sense (ST) and a theory of force in combination makes it possible to determine from a complete description of the utterance to come to it: "He claims that p" or "he asks that p" etc. whereby what replaces "p" is the sentence used on the right side of the theorem. I.e. we have a two-sided theory from the theory of sense and the theory of force. Acceptability in this theory would require that the descriptions of propositional actions fit into a wider context. II 46 Thesis, then, is not the illumination of the concept of meaning by other concepts and even less reduction, but simply a description of its relation to these other concepts. II 47 Sense/Truth/McDowell: Thesis: Sense is not what a truth theory is about, but rather truth is what a sense theory is about. The gap could also be filled quite differently, the above considerations ensure that the theorems would continue to be acceptable if this other filling were again replaced by "true, if and only if". Thus, as Frege thought, a sense theory will specify the truth conditions for sentences, either directly or by justifiable transformation. |
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 |
| Transc..Idealism | Putnam, H. | Horwich I 440 Transcendental idealism / Kant / Putnam: the image that I propose instead, is not quite Kant but similar: Truth = idealized rational acceptability. |
Horwich I P. Horwich (Ed.) Theories of Truth Aldershot 1994 |
| Truth | Quine, W.V.O. | Horwich I 502 Truth / Putnam: must be substantial. Otherwise, it leads to cultural relativism. ((s) explanatory role, truth as a property PutnamVsDeflationism). Put V 10 Putnam: truth and rationality are intimately linked. Rational acceptability is the only criterion for what is a fact. Eg It may well be rational to accept that a picture is nice. And to that extent, it is also a fact that the image is beautiful. |
Horwich I P. Horwich (Ed.) Theories of Truth Aldershot 1994 |
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