Dictionary of Arguments


Philosophical and Scientific Issues in Dispute
 
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The author or concept searched is found in the following 3 entries.
Disputed term/author/ism Author
Entry
Reference
Numbers Field I 153
Numbers/Frege/Crispin Wright: Frege suggests that the fact that our arithmetical language has these qualities is sufficient to establish natural numbers as a sortal concept whose instances, if they have some, are the objects. WrightVsFrege: but the objects do not have to exist.
Problem: Frege thus demands that empirical concerns are irrelevant. - Then there is also no possibility of an error.
>Numbers/Frege, >Existence/Frege.
II 214
Numbers/BenacerrafVsReduction/Benacerraf/Field: there may be several correlations so that one cannot speak of "the" referent of number words. >Paul Benacerraf.
Solution/Field: we have to extend "partially denoted" also to sequences of terms.
>Denotation, >Partial denotation, >Generalization/Field.
Then "straight", "prim", etc. become base-dependent predicates whose basis is the sequence of the numbers. - Then one can get mathematical truth (> truth preservation, truth transfer). - E.g. "The number two is Caesar" is neither true nor false. (without truth value).
>Senseless.
II 326
Def Natural numbers/Zermelo/Benacerraf/Field: 0 is the empty set and every natural number > 0 is the set that is the only element which includes the set which is n-1. Def Natural numbers/von Neumann/Benacerraf/Field: Every natural number n is the set that has the sets as elements which are the predecessors of n as elements.
Fact/Nonfactualism/Field: it is clear that there is no fact about whether Zermelos or von Neumann's approach "presents" the things "correctly" - there is no fact which decides whether numbers are sets.
That is what I call the Definition Structural Insight: it makes no difference what the objects of a mathematical theory are, if they are only in a right relationship with each other.

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

Sentences Field II 190
Structure/sentence structure/Field: is useful to give a semantics of indefinite expressions: Structure m for a sentence is a function that maps each name or mass term of the sentence to an object or quantity, and each predicate to a set. >Mapping, >Analysis, >Structures, >Singular terms, >General terms, >Predicates, >Predication, >Attribution, cf. >Quantification.
Structure m corresponds to the sentence if any name, any mass term and each predicate partially denotes the thing, m attributes to it.
>Partial denotation.
Definition of truth by structure-truth:
E.g. mass: both times regardless of the reference frame, but
once relativistic mass,
once dead weight.
Then the proposition that mass is independent of the reference frame is once true, once false.
>Truth/Field, >Meaning change, >Theory change.

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

Theories Field I 249ff
Theory/object level/Field: we assume a theory here instead of the truth of the theory. Problem: the theory requires mathematical entities. >Mathematical entities, >Truth, >Description levels.
I 262
Physics/theory/Language/ontology/Field: Thesis: in the typical physical language, sentences are essential for the description of observations that contain mathematical entities. Then a theory without mathematical entities does not allow any inference about distances and masses. >Physics, >Ontology.
Solution: new (comparative) predicates: For example, the distance between x and y is r-times the distance between z and w, etc. - For example, the velocity of y relative to y multiplied by the time difference between z and w is r-times spatial distance between u and v (Definition acceleration without numbers). - r: is a rational number.
This distinguishes the predicates in the family.
>Predicates.
NominalismVs: these are too many predicates.
>Nominalism.
---
II 46
Theory/truth/Field: it is the assertion that the axioms of the theory are true of their objects at certain points of time (or at all times) - not the theory itself. >Axioms.
Variables: We leave it out here very often, but they must be understood as implicitly existing.
>Variables.
Instead of "pain has that and that causal role" we must say: "For every t and every c (organism) of type S to t, pain has that and that causal role in c to t".
II 187
Ideal theory/Quine/Field: (Quine 1960(1), 23-4): Suppose there is an ideal theory (in the future) that could be considered as completely true: problem: this ideal theory could not correct the truth values of our actual (present) individual sentences. >Reference, >Theory change, >Meaning change, >Idealization.
Reason: there is no general sense in which one can equate a single sentence of a theory with a single sentence of another theory.
Quine/(s): there is no inter-theoretical translatability. - Thus there is no Truth-predicate for single sentences of a theory. - Falsehood is distributed to the whole theory. - There is no fact that distributes falsehood onto single sentences.
FieldVsQuine: therefore the sentences are not "intertheoretically meaningless"!
Solution/Field: "partial denotation": Newton's mass partially denoted.
>Partial denotation.
FieldVsKuhn/FieldVsIncommensurability: denotational refinement: (later only partial quantity) means no incommensurability.
>Incommensurability.

1. Quine, W. V. (1960). Word and Object. MIT Press.

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


The author or concept searched is found in the following controversies.
Disputed term/author/ism Author Vs Author
Entry
Reference
Carnap, R. Lewis Vs Carnap, R. Field II 196
Theoretical Terms/TT/Ramsey sentence/Carnap/Lewis/Field: (Carnap 1956, Kap.26, Lewis 1979b,1972). Theoretical Term/Introduction/Content/Ramsey sentence/Carnap: if a new TT was introduced by a theory Θ(T), then the content of the theory is equal to the content of the Ramsey sentence (Ex)Θ(x).
Only realization: In a special case in which (E!x)Θ(x) is, we can say that T denotes the only object that fulfills Θ(x).
multiple realization: Problem: what does the theoretical term denote here? (>Functionalism/Lewis, >Turing machine).
It seems to need to denote something, if this were not possible we cannot explain why Θ(T) is true (and this must be according Carnap's thesis that it "has the content" of(Ex)Θ(x).)
Solution/Carnap: if Θ (x) is realized multiple times, then T denotes one random object which fulfills Θ(x).
LewisVsCarnap: This is not plausible because it is not explained how it is possible for a user of T to take a particular object instead of another one.
Field II 197
Content/TT/Ramsey sentence/Lewis/Field: Lewis felt obliged (probably reluctantly) to not take the content of the Ramsey sentence Ex Θ (x), but the modified sentence of Ramsey: (E! x) Θ (x) ((s) which only presumes one object). I.e. the theory is wrong if Θ(x) is realized multiple times, so that T can be seen as without denotations. Then there is no ambiguity.
LewisVs: (1970b): This is costly: Then if somebody states Θ (T), then it is absolutely implausible that he thereby has asserted that nothing than T Θ (x) can be fulfilled.
LewisVs: (1972): even worse: it has been applied here on functionalism, which is after all based on multiple realization.
Multiple Realization/Functionalism/Field: Many authors actually want to accept mR in one and the same organism at the same time.
Partial Denotation/Lösung/Field: Lewis could simply say that (as Carnap says) the content of Θ (T) is simply the Ramsey sentence (Ex) Θ (x), and if Θ (x) is realized multiple ways, then T partially denotes each of the "Realisierer".
Lewis IV 88
Theoretical Terms/TT/Definition/Description/Lewis: After having defined the TT through descriptions, we can eliminated the latter with their help. This is how we obtain O sentences. Def Extended Postulation/Lewis: the postulate of T that we get by replacing the TT by descriptions (O sentence).
It says that the theory T is realized by the n tuple of the first, second...component of the only realization of T.
The extended postulate is equivalent in definition to the postulate.
It says that the theory is uniquely realized.
It is logically equivalent to a shorter O phrase, which says the same in a shorter form.
This is what we call the "sentence of the only realization of T":
IV 89
Ey1...yn (x) x1...xn (T[x1,,,xn] ↔ . y1 = x1 & ..& yn = xn LewisVsCarnap: then the postulate is true if and only if the theory is realized once.
Problem:
the expanded postulate is an O phrase that is stronger than the Ramsey phrase that merely says that there is at least one realization.
Nevertheless, if the definition sentences are part of T, then the extended postulate is a theorem of T.
Then the definitions give us theorems that could not have been derived without them.
This means that the definitions themselves, unlike the Carnap theorem, are not logically implied by the postulate.
Therefore, if we want to say that the definition sets of T are correct definitions, we must abandon the idea that the theorems are all and only the logical consequences of T's postulate. And we like to give that up.

Lewis I
David K. Lewis
Die Identität von Körper und Geist Frankfurt 1989

Lewis I (a)
David K. Lewis
An Argument for the Identity Theory, in: Journal of Philosophy 63 (1966)
In
Die Identität von Körper und Geist, Frankfurt/M. 1989

Lewis I (b)
David K. Lewis
Psychophysical and Theoretical Identifications, in: Australasian Journal of Philosophy 50 (1972)
In
Die Identität von Körper und Geist, Frankfurt/M. 1989

Lewis I (c)
David K. Lewis
Mad Pain and Martian Pain, Readings in Philosophy of Psychology, Vol. 1, Ned Block (ed.) Harvard University Press, 1980
In
Die Identität von Körper und Geist, Frankfurt/M. 1989

Lewis II
David K. Lewis
"Languages and Language", in: K. Gunderson (Ed.), Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. VII, Language, Mind, and Knowledge, Minneapolis 1975, pp. 3-35
In
Handlung, Kommunikation, Bedeutung, Georg Meggle Frankfurt/M. 1979

Lewis IV
David K. Lewis
Philosophical Papers Bd I New York Oxford 1983

Lewis V
David K. Lewis
Philosophical Papers Bd II New York Oxford 1986

Lewis VI
David K. Lewis
Convention. A Philosophical Study, Cambridge/MA 1969
German Edition:
Konventionen Berlin 1975

LewisCl
Clarence Irving Lewis
Collected Papers of Clarence Irving Lewis Stanford 1970

LewisCl I
Clarence Irving Lewis
Mind and the World Order: Outline of a Theory of Knowledge (Dover Books on Western Philosophy) 1991

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