Find counter arguments by entering NameVs… or …VsName.
The author or concept searched is found in the following 5 entries.
| Disputed term/author/ism | Author |
Entry |
Reference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Propositions | Prior | I 12/13 Propositions/Prior: propositioes are logical structures (i.e. no real objects), (facts and phrases are not). >Objects, >Intensions, >Facts, >Sentences. Therefore propositions are language independent. >Language dependency, >Language independence, >Translation, >Meaning. I 19 Proposition/fact/Prior: "Grass is not pink": complex sentence on grass, not sentence about "proposition" Grass is pink"". >About, >Levels/order, >Description levels. I 29 Proposition/Prior: you cannot only think P, but also about P, but other form than about objects: E.g. "__ thinks that the proposition __ is absurd": because the second gap is not for name but a sentence. >Names, >Sentences, >Meta language, >Thinking. "about"/Prior: belief-that, thinking-that: this is never about propositions, but about what propositions are about. "about" is systematically ambiguous, what it means depends on what kind of name or quasi-name (for example, numbers) follows it. >Objects of thought, >Objects of belief. I 42 Propositions/Wittgenstein/Ramsey: no matter from what "order" are always truth functions of independent sentences. I 52 Propositions/Prior: have only Pickwick's importance. (WittgensteinVsBroad: (W II 94), there is not a "special" meaning besides the "ordinary" B.) - Proposition/Church: propositions have the property, "to be the concept of truth or falsehood". >Thoughts, >A. Church. I 53 Proposition/Prior: when we speak of propositional identity, we are forced, to no longer see them as logical constructions. We need to treat them as real objects. (PriorVs). >Intensions, >Intensionality, cf. >Hyperintensionality, >Identification, >Individuation. I 53 Name/proposition/Prior: "the proposition that p" only apparent name. >Names, >Names of sentences. I 64 Identity of propositions/Prior: no substantive equivalence. >Equivalence, >Material equivalence. |
Pri I A. Prior Objects of thought Oxford 1971 Pri II Arthur N. Prior Papers on Time and Tense 2nd Edition Oxford 2003 |
| Realism | Churchland | Pauen I 99 "Scientific Realism"/Terminology/Pauen: (Scientific Realism): Churchland's and Sellar's approach: Thesis: The ontology is determined by the entities whose existence asserts our best scientific theories. >Best explanation, >Ontology, >Existence, >W. Sellars. The dependence of the language on the ontology will then only exist because it is irrelevant to the above mentioned argument on what our existence assumptions depend. >Language dependence, >Language independence. Churchland/Pauen: committs the sciences to a very strong conception of nature as a kind of "thing-in-itself," ultimate authority in deciding on theories. |
Churla I Paul M. Churchland Matter and Consciousness Cambridge 2013 Churli I Patricia S. Churchland Touching a Nerve: Our Brains, Our Brains New York 2014 Churli II Patricia S. Churchland "Can Neurobiology Teach Us Anything about Consciousness?" in: The Nature of Consciousness: Philosophical Debates ed. Block, Flanagan, Güzeldere pp. 127-140 In Bewusstein, Thomas Metzinger Paderborn/München/Wien/Zürich 1996 Pauen I M. Pauen Grundprobleme der Philosophie des Geistes Frankfurt 2001 |
| Semantic Facts | Soames | I 474 Semantic facts/language dependency/Soames: Ex "b" refers (in L) to Boston. Ex "C" refers to cities. Ex "Cb" is true in L gdw. Boston is a city. These statements are speaker dependent. No semantic fact is: Ex "b" = "b" and Boston = Boston. Ex For all objects o, "C" = "C" and o is a city gdw. o is a city. These are speaker-independent. One cannot simply identify the two types. Semantic properties have expressions only by virtue of their use by speakers of the language. Non-semantic (speaker-independent) facts are not physicalistically reducible. >Reduction, >Reducibility. I 475 Language independence/Field: with primitive reference and true, if the logical constants and syntax are held constant, we obtain a language-independent W term. >Logical constants, >Syntax, >Language dependence. ((s) Semantic property/(s): not negation itself, but that the negation of a particular expression is true or applies in a situation). |
Soames I Scott Soames "What is a Theory of Truth?", The Journal of Philosophy 81 (1984), pp. 411-29 In Theories of Truth, Paul Horwich Aldershot 1994 Soames II S. Soames Understanding Truth Oxford 1999 |
| Tarski | Field | I 33f Tarski/Field: According to Tarski the following two sentences are a contradiction because he needs quantities for his definition of implication: a) "Snow is white" does not imply logically "grass is green". b) There are no mathematical entities like quantities. ((s) Therefore, Field must be independent of Tarski.) Solution Field: Implication as a basic concept. >Mathematical entities, >Ontology/Field, >Tarski-scheme. --- II 124 Tarski/Truth: Tarski's truth theory is unlike disquotational truth: only for a fragment. >Disquotationalism/Field. Unrestricted quantifiers and semantic concepts must be excluded. >Quantifiers. Problem: we cannot create infinite conjunctions and disjunctions with that. (Tarski-Truth is not suitable for generalization). >Generalization. DeflationsimVsTarski/QuineVsTarski. >Deflationism. Otherwise, we must give up an explicit definition. Deflationism: uses a generalized version of the truth-schema. TarskiVsDeflationism: pro compositionality. (Also Davidson) >Compositionality. Tarski: needs recursion to characterize e.g."or". >Logical constants. II 125 Composition principle/Field: E.g. A sentence consisting of a one-digit predicate and a referencing name is true, iff the predicate is true of what the name denotes. This goes beyond logical rules because it introduces reference and denotation. >Reference, >Denotation. Tarski: needs this for a satisfying Truth-concept. Deflationism: Reference and danotation is not important for it. >Compositionality). II 141 Truth-Theory/Tarski: Thesis: we do not get an adequate Truth-theory if we take only all instances of the schema as axioms. - This does not give us the generalizations we need, e.g. that the modus ponens receives the truth. II 142 Deflationism/Tarski/Field. Actually, Tarski's approach is also deflationistic. --- Soames I 477 FieldVsTarski/Soames: Tarski hides speech behavior. Field: Tarski introduces primitive reference, and so on. >language independence. SoamesVsField: his physicalist must reduce every single one of the semantic concepts. - For example, he cannot characterize negation as a symbol by truth, because that would be circular. E.g. he cannot take negation as the basic concept, because then there would be no facts about speakers (no semantic facts about use) that explain the semantic properties. FieldVsTarski: one would have to be able to replace the semantic terms by physical terms. >Semantics. |
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 Soames I Scott Soames "What is a Theory of Truth?", The Journal of Philosophy 81 (1984), pp. 411-29 In Theories of Truth, Paul Horwich Aldershot 1994 Soames II S. Soames Understanding Truth Oxford 1999 |
| Theories | Cresswell | I 50 Physical theory/Cresswell: their formalization does not need an explicit reference to the language. - (+) - possible worlds as models, not linguistic elements, only parts that can be gained from the area of the intended interpretation. >Possible worlds, >Models, >Language independence. Therefore, possible worlds are no strict linguistic entities. I 52 If h is a topicality model of L, then for every deductive consequence α of E(L), wh ∈ V v (α) for every v ∈ N. II 92 Theory/Cresswell: Problems arise from facts, they should not be caused by a theory. >Facts, >Ontology. II 162 Theory/possible worlds/Physics/Cresswell: one cannot simply limit the amount of possible worlds by his own favored physical theory which (the theory) one wants to admit. If one does that, one could not test one's own theory. >Confirmation, >Verification, >Method. A physical theory must be rich enough to contain resources to define what the case would be if this theory was false. >Falsification. |
Cr I M. J. Cresswell Semantical Essays (Possible worlds and their rivals) Dordrecht Boston 1988 Cr II M. J. Cresswell Structured Meanings Cambridge Mass. 1984 |
| |||
| Disputed term/author/ism | Author Vs Author |
Entry |
Reference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Field, H. | Soames Vs Field, H. | I 467 Truth Theory/WT/Tarski/Soames: two statuses: a) as a mathematical theory with many rich results b) philosophically significant for the concept of truth. Truth Theory/Soames: there is controversy about what a truth theory should be; in general it should do one of the following three things: (i) give the meaning of the truth predicate for natural languages. (ii) replace these truth predicates reductionistically (iii) use a previously understood truth concept to explain meaning or for other metaphysical purposes. Proposition/Soames: for the following purposes you need propositions rather than sentences or utterances: Example (1) a. the proposition that the earth is moving is true. b. Church's theorem is true c. Everything he said is true. I 468 SoamesVsPropositions. Truth Predicate/Generalization/Quine/Soames: e.g. to characterize realism: (5) There is a doppelgänger of the sun in a distant region of space, but we will never find sufficient evidence that he exists. Soames: of course you can be a realist without believing (5). ((s) (5) is too special, it is only an example). Anti-Realism/Soames: what then distinguishes it from realism? One is tempted to say: (6) Either there is a doppelgänger of our sun.... or no doppelgänger.... and we will have no evidence at all.... I 470 SoamesVs: this leads to an infinite list that we should avoid. Solution: semantic rise: (7) There is at least one sentence S, so that S is true (in German) but we will never find (sufficient) evidence for S. I 472 Truth Definition/Field: consists of two parts: 1. "primitive denotation": e.g. (s) "Caesar" refers to Caesar. 2. the truth definition in terms of primitive denotation. The result is a sentence of the metalanguage: (8) For all sentences S of L, S is true iff T(S). FieldVsTarski/Soames: (Field: "Tarski's Truth Theory" (this journal, I XIX, 1972): this assumption (that truth, truth and reference are physically acceptable in Tarski) is wrong! Field: the proposed substitutions for the notions of primitive denotation are not physically acceptable reductions I 474 of our pre-theoretical concepts of reference and truth. Soames: this is only true if Field assumes that Tarski has reduced truth to primitive denotation. Truth-Def/Correctness/Tarski/Field/Soames: Field does not deny that the truth definition is extensionally correct. FieldVsTarski: but extensional correctness is not sufficient. "Cb" is a sentence and the semantic n facts about it are given in (9): (9) a. "b" refers (in L) to Boston b. "C" applies (in L) to cities (and cities only) c. "Cb" is true (in L) iff Boston is a city. (speaker dependent) Problem: you cannot just identify the facts from (10) with the facts from (9) now. Semantic Property/Field: expressions of a language have only force through the way they are used by speakers (usage). Problem: the facts from (9) would not have existed at all if the language behaviour (in the broadest sense) had been different! N.B.: the facts from (10) are not dependent on speakers. Therefore they are not semantic facts. Therefore Tarski cannot reduce them to physical facts. Truth Predicate/FieldVsTarski: it is both physicalistic and coextensive with "true in L", but it is still not a physicalistic truth concept. Problem: the inadequacy inherits the characterization of the truth from the pseudo reductions that constitute the "base clauses" ((s) recursive definitions?) ((s) among other things for and, or etc. base clauses). I 475 Solution/Field: we need to find real reductions for the concepts of primitive denotation or something like a model of the causal theory of reference. Field/Soames: these are again two stages: 1. Tarski's reduction from truth to primitive denotation ((s) as above) 2. an imagined reduction of the concepts of the reference of names and of the accuracy of predicates, similar to a causal theory. Language independence/Field/Soames: if the physical facts that determine the denotation in a language do so for all languages, then the denotation applies to all languages. If logical constants and syntax are kept constant, we get a truth concept that is language independent. Problem: 1. Reference to abstract objects ((s) for these there are no semantic facts). 2. Ontological relativity and undeterminedness of the reference. SoamesVsField: he even understated his criticism of Tarski (FieldVsTarski)! Tarski/Soames: because if Tarski did not reduce primitive denotation to physical facts, then he did not reduce truth to primitive denotation at all ((s) so he missed point 1). Example two languages L1 and L2 which are identical except: L1: here "R" applies to round things L2: here on red things. Truth conditional: are then different for some sentences in both languages: (11) a. "Re" is true in L1 iff the earth is round b. "Re" is true in L2 iff the earth is red. Tarski/Soames: in its truth definition, this difference will be traceable back to the base clauses of the two truth definitions for each language, because here the applications of the predicates are presented in a list. FieldVsTarski: its truth definition correctly reports that "R" applies to different things in the two languages, but it does not explain how the difference came about from the use of language by speakers. SoamesVsField/SoamesVsTarski: Field does not say that the same accusation can be made against VsTarski I 476 in relation to logical vocabulary and syntax in the recursive part of its definition. Example L1: could treat [(A v B)] as true if A or B is true, L2: ...if A and B are true. FieldVsTarski: then it is not sufficient for the characterization of truth to simply "communicate" that the truth conditions are different. It would have to be explained by the language behavior in the two different languages ((s) > speaker meaning). FieldVsTarski: because he says nothing about language behavior (speaker meaning in a community), he does not meet the demands of physicalism ((s) to explain physical facts of behavior). Soames: this means that Field's strategy of obtaining a real reduction of truth by supplementing Tarski with non-trivial definitions of primitive denotation cannot work. For according to Field, Tarski did not reduce truth to primitive denotation. He has reduced them at best to lists of semantic basic concepts: (13) the term of a name referring to an object The term of a predicate that applies to an object. The concept of a formula which is the application of an n digit predicate to an n tuple of terms ... I 477 Soames: but this requires a reformulation of each clause in Tarski's recursive definition. E.g. old: 14 a, new: 14.b: (14) a. if A = [~B] , then A is true in L (with respect to a sequence s) iff B is not true in L (with respect to s). b. If A is a negation of a formula B, then A is .... Soames: the resulting abstraction extends the generality of truth definition to classes of 1. Level languages: these languages differ arbitrarily in syntax, plus logical and non-logical vocabulary. SoamesVsField: Problem: this generality has its price. Old: the original definition simply stipulated that [~A) is a negation ((s) >symbol, definition). New: the new definition gives no indication which formulas fall into these categories. SoamesVsField: its physicist must now reduce each of the semantic terms. Logical Linkage/Constants/Logical Terms/Soames: we can either a) define about truth, or b) specify that certain symbols should be instances of these logical terms. SoamesVsField: neither of these two paths is open to him now! a) he cannot characterize negation as a symbol that is appended to a formula to form a new formula that is true if the original formula was false because that would be circular. b) he cannot simply take negation as a basic concept (primitive) and determine that [~s] is the negation of s. For then there would be no facts about speakers, ((s) Language behavior, physicalistic), that would explain the semantic properties of [~s]. Soames: there are alternatives, but none is convincing. Truth functional operator/Quine: (roots of the reference) are characterized as dispositions in a community for semantic ascent and descent. Problem/Quine: uncertainty between classical and intuitionist constructions of linkages are inevitable. SoamesVsField: Reduction from primitive denotation to physical facts is difficult enough. I 478 It becomes much more difficult for logical terms. SoamesVsField: this is because semantic facts on physical facts must supervene over speakers. ((s) >speaker meaning, language behavior). Problem: this limits adequate definitions to those that legitimize the use of semantic terms in contexts such as (15) and (16). ((s) (15) and (16) are fine, the later ones no longer). (15) If L speakers had behaved differently, "b" (in L) would not have referred to Boston and "C" to cities and .....((s) Counterfactual Conditionals). (16) The fact that L speakers behave the way they do explains why "b" (in L) refers to Boston, etc. ((s) Both times reference) Soames: FieldVsTarski is convinced that there is a way to decipher (15) and (16) that they become true when the semantic terms are replaced by physical ones and the initial clauses are constructed in such a way that they contain contingents to express physical possibilities. This is not the character of Tarski's truth definition. I 481 Primitive Reference/language independent/SoamesVsField: For example a name n refers to an object o in a language L iff FL(n) = o. FL: is a purely mathematical object: a set of pairs perhaps. I.e. it contains no undefined semantic terms. Truth Predicate/Truth/Theory/Soames: the resulting truth predicate is exactly what we need to metatheoretically study the nature, structure, and scope of a multiple number of theories. Truth Definition/Language/Soames: what the truth definition does not tell us is something about the speakers of the languages to which it is applied. According to this view, languages are abstract objects. ((s) All the time you have to distinguish between language independence and speaker independence). Language/primitive denotation/language independent/truth/SoamesVsField: according to this view languages are abstract objects, i.e. they can be understood in such a way that they essentially have their semantic properties ((s) not dependent on language behaviour or speakers, (speaker meaning), not physical. I.e. with other properties it would be another language). I.e. it could not have turned out that expressions of a language could have denoted something other than what they actually denote. Or that sentences of one language could have had other truth conditions. I 483 SoamesVsField: this too will hardly be able to avoid this division. Index Words/Ambiguity/Field: (p. 351ff) Solution: Contextually disambiguated statements are made unambiguous by the context. Semantic terms: should be applied to unambiguous entities. I.e. all clauses in a truth definition must be formulated so that they are applied to tokens. Example Negation/Field (21) A token of [~e] is true (with respect to a sequence) iff the token of e it includes is not true (with respect to that sequence). SoamesVsField: that does not work. Because Field cannot accept a truth definition in which any syntactic form is simply defined as a negation. ((s) Symbol, stipulates, then independent of physical facts). Soames: because this would not explain facts about speakers by virtue of whom negative constructions have the semantic properties they have. Semantic property(s): not negation itself, but that the negation of a certain expression is true or applies in a situation. Example "Caesar" refers to Caesar: Would be completely independent from circumstances, speakers, even if not from the language, the latter, however, actually only concerns the metalanguage. Solution/Soames: (22) A token of a formula A, which is a negation of a formula B, is true (with respect to a sequence) iff a designated token of B is not true (with respect to this sequence). "Designated"/(s): means here: explicitly provided with a truth value. |
Soames I Scott Soames "What is a Theory of Truth?", The Journal of Philosophy 81 (1984), pp. 411-29 In Theories of Truth, Paul Horwich Aldershot 1994 Soames II S. Soames Understanding Truth Oxford 1999 |
| |||