Find counter arguments by entering NameVs… or …VsName.
The author or concept searched is found in the following 6 entries.
| Disputed term/author/ism | Author |
Entry |
Reference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Attribution | Field | II 44 Behavior/attribution/ascription/Field: a claim about behavior is not simply a statement about behavior, but how behavior is caused. >Behaviorism. Belief ascription/Martians/Field: to alien beings, we cannot attribute sentences. Problem: we cannot decide whether a functional theory of their beliefs requires internal representations as well. >Other minds, >Representation, >Inner states, >Mental states, >Causation. |
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 |
| Attribution | Fodor | IV 109 Intentional Attribution/Lewis: thesis: the primacy of belief: the terms of the attribution of content include the conditions of belief ascription ((s) not represented by Lewis above). >Belief, >Intentionality, >Intentions, >Content. |
F/L Jerry Fodor Ernest Lepore Holism. A Shoppers Guide Cambridge USA Oxford UK 1992 Fodor I Jerry Fodor "Special Sciences (or The Disunity of Science as a Working Hypothesis", Synthese 28 (1974), 97-115 In Kognitionswissenschaft, Dieter Münch Frankfurt/M. 1992 Fodor II Jerry Fodor Jerrold J. Katz Sprachphilosophie und Sprachwissenschaft In Linguistik und Philosophie, G. Grewendorf/G. Meggle Frankfurt/M. 1974/1995 Fodor III Jerry Fodor Jerrold J. Katz The availability of what we say in: Philosophical review, LXXII, 1963, pp.55-71 In Linguistik und Philosophie, G. Grewendorf/G. Meggle Frankfurt/M. 1974/1995 |
| Context/Context Dependence | Millikan | I 213 Intentional context/says that/believes that/belief attribution/Millikan: 1. Method: to ask: what characteristics of expressions must be preserved during the translation from direct to indirect speech. E.g. translation of "John said p" to "John said that q". Millikan: thesis: the rule will be to get the reference, no matter what expression must be used. Problem: when a descriptive expression needs to be translated. Then the relational meaning must also be preserved. I 214 2. Method: every indexical expression token in intentional contexts should be read as a shifted (i.e., normal!) adapted referent from the current context, not from the original context. >Belief ascription, >Indirect speech, >Quote, >Translation, >Utterance. |
Millikan I R. G. Millikan Language, Thought, and Other Biological Categories: New Foundations for Realism Cambridge 1987 Millikan II Ruth Millikan "Varieties of Purposive Behavior", in: Anthropomorphism, Anecdotes, and Animals, R. W. Mitchell, N. S. Thomspon and H. L. Miles (Eds.) Albany 1997, pp. 189-1967 In Der Geist der Tiere, D Perler/M. Wild Frankfurt/M. 2005 |
| Meaning | Fodor | Cresswell II 56 Meanings/Fodor/Cresswell: FodorVsPutnam: thesis: meanings are in the head. >Putnam: "meanings ain't in the head", >Twin earth. CresswellVsFodor: problem with the ascription, I will have to have the same representation in the head. It must have the same belief as the one he has (meanings are not representations). >Representations, >Objects of belief, >Objects of thought. --- IV 57 Meaning/Quine: meaning does not arise from speaker meaning, no acceptance of inferences of the speaker. The speaker meaning depends on the worldview, and thus of an intention what the words should mean. It cannot distinguish between the views the speaker accepted a priori and those he accepted later. So there are no analytic sentences, there is no epistemic criteria for “true by meaning”. >Speaker meaning, >Analyticity/syntheticity. IV 117 Meaning/truth/Davidson: a speaker holds a sentence to be true because of the meaning and because of his/her belief. So we cannot conclude from utterance meaning if we do not know the beliefs of the speaker and we cannot do it the other way around. IV 121 Belief ascription/attribution of meaning/Davidson's theory: information about the shape of the words which are held to be true are the decisive evidence for both attributions here. The adoption of sincerity alone is not enough to detect meaning. We need information either about his/her belief or about the meanings. Fodor/LeporeVsLewis: then the primacy thesis is implausible (primacy thesis: "the conditions of intentional attribution include the conditions for belief ascription"). >Attribution, >Belief ascription. |
F/L Jerry Fodor Ernest Lepore Holism. A Shoppers Guide Cambridge USA Oxford UK 1992 Fodor I Jerry Fodor "Special Sciences (or The Disunity of Science as a Working Hypothesis", Synthese 28 (1974), 97-115 In Kognitionswissenschaft, Dieter Münch Frankfurt/M. 1992 Fodor II Jerry Fodor Jerrold J. Katz Sprachphilosophie und Sprachwissenschaft In Linguistik und Philosophie, G. Grewendorf/G. Meggle Frankfurt/M. 1974/1995 Fodor III Jerry Fodor Jerrold J. Katz The availability of what we say in: Philosophical review, LXXII, 1963, pp.55-71 In Linguistik und Philosophie, G. Grewendorf/G. Meggle Frankfurt/M. 1974/1995 Cr I M. J. Cresswell Semantical Essays (Possible worlds and their rivals) Dordrecht Boston 1988 Cr II M. J. Cresswell Structured Meanings Cambridge Mass. 1984 |
| Metaphysics | Fodor | IV 107 Metaphysical: is the assumption that if there is a fact about the intentional state, then it is this fact that makes the attribution match the physical facts best. IV 110 Metaphysical/Fodor/Lepore: not metaphysical: the finding that a suitable property is assumed as defining is not metaphysical. Metaphysical: e.g. the assumption that rationality is constitutive of intentionality, e.g. that explanatory force and simplicity are constitutive of the nomological is transcendental, e.g. Davidson's assumption: the principle of chartiy is to be rooted in the epistemic situation of the interpreter. LewisVsDavidson: intentional attribution must not be understood with reference to the epistemic situation of the radical interpretation. Lewis instead: the principle of charity is part of our concept of the person. >Principle of charity, >Attribution, >Belief ascription, >Mental states. |
F/L Jerry Fodor Ernest Lepore Holism. A Shoppers Guide Cambridge USA Oxford UK 1992 Fodor I Jerry Fodor "Special Sciences (or The Disunity of Science as a Working Hypothesis", Synthese 28 (1974), 97-115 In Kognitionswissenschaft, Dieter Münch Frankfurt/M. 1992 Fodor II Jerry Fodor Jerrold J. Katz Sprachphilosophie und Sprachwissenschaft In Linguistik und Philosophie, G. Grewendorf/G. Meggle Frankfurt/M. 1974/1995 Fodor III Jerry Fodor Jerrold J. Katz The availability of what we say in: Philosophical review, LXXII, 1963, pp.55-71 In Linguistik und Philosophie, G. Grewendorf/G. Meggle Frankfurt/M. 1974/1995 |
| Predication | Geach | I 52 Naming/Denotation/Two-Names Theory/GeachVsAristoteles: Incorrect approximation of predication and naming: as if predicates were (complex) names : "on the mat". >Naming, >Predication, >Attribution, >Names, >Predicates, >Aristotle. ((s) "The man stabbing Caesar to death stabbed the one stabbed by Brutus.") Geach: Additionally, Geach would use a link. Two-names theory/Aristotle/Geach: "Socrates is a philosopher" should be true because the thing is named. GeachVs: "Philosopher" (general term) is not a name for "all (or every) philosopher". >General terms. I 70 Contradictory predications like "Fa" and "~Fa" refer to a common subject - there are no "contradictory subjects". >Beliefs/Geach, >Belief ascription. I 252 Predication/Geach: can be done without naming: in an if-clause or in an or-clause, a term P can be predicated from a thing without naming the thing with "P". E.g. "If that what the police officer has said, is true, then he was driving faster than 60". This does not name the police officer's sentence as true. - (> Conditional). - Predication/naming: century-old error: the predicate is predicated from the thing - Frege: Difference >Designation, >Denotation, >Predication: to name a thing "P", a sentence must be asserted! But a property is also predicated in a non-asserting sub-clause (subset) - therefore, naming must be explained by predication, not vice versa. I 290 Predication/Geach: wrong: to read "SiP" as "a thing is a predicate" - (origin: "Two-Names-Theory, Aristotle) a subject cannot be negated - sentence negation: negation of the predicate. I 291 GeachVsAristoteles: Vs "Two-Names-Theory"/TNT: confuses the relation of names to the named with relation of the predicate to what it is stated from -> false doctrine of the Trinity. I 295 Prediction/Theology/Thomas Aquinas: the expression after "as" is predicative: e.g., "Christ inasmuch as he is human". - Distinction between subject and predicate, VsTwo-Name-Theory. >Thomas Aquinas. False: Two-Name-Theory: E.g.: "His godly nature is immortal, his human nature is mortal". Aquinas: can distinguish "Christ as human is God". False: Two-name-theory: cannot do this because "human" and "God" are merely two names. >Two name theory: see above). VsOckham: E.g. for him, "humanitas" is not more than "majesty": a disguised name for a concrete thing. Problem: for Ockham, humanity is no longer human when viewed as the Son of God. VsOckham: because it is not genuinely abstract, e.g. the mayor's office becomes the mayor. >William of Ockham. I 300 Predication/Thomas Aquinas/Geach: Subject: refers to a suppositum (an "accepted") predicate: refers to a form or nature. Predication: unequal naming: E.g. "The Prime Minister became Prime Minister" - Nonsense: "which Prime Minister?". |
Gea I P.T. Geach Logic Matters Oxford 1972 |
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| Disputed term/author/ism | Author Vs Author |
Entry |
Reference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Burge, T. | Loar Vs Burge, T. | Stalnaker II 202 That-Sentence/Psychological Content/Loar: Thesis: psychological content is not always identical to what is captured by a that-sentence. There is only one loose match. Ascription/attribution/content/Principle/attribution principles/ascription principles/Loar/Stalnaker: there are two principles that Loar wants to prove false: 1. equality (Sameness) de dicto or indirect ascriptions implies equality of psychological content. 2. differences de dicto and indirect ascriptions imply differences in psychological content. LoarVsBurge: he accepts these two principles when he says that in normal declarations of conduct we actually attribute broad content. LoarVsBurge: if we negate the two principles, we can avoid assuming that it is further content that we attribute. StalnakerVsLoar: I do not understand his two principles because I do not see how to distinguish the content of normal belief ascriptions from the references of that-sentences. One could at best say a) the expressions (that-sentences) are either the same or different, b) the referencces (the that-sentences) are the same or different. Ad a): then the principles have no sense at all. The 1st principle (that the equality of belief ascriptions requires equality of content) would be wrong if the that-sentences are context-dependent. Loar forbids index words here, but also general terms can be context dependent, then the principle is wrong even for broad content! II 205 Privileged Access/Loar/Stalnaker: Loar's phenomenological argument for his internalism is the privileged access we have to ourselves. We know what our thoughts are about. LoarVsBurge/LoarVsExternalism: privileged access is incompatible with anti-individualism. (Camp: Loar pro internalism, Loar pro individualism). II 206 Loar: Thesis: it is hard to see how I could be wrong about my purely semantic judgment that my thought about Freud is about Freud - provided Freud exists timelessly. |
Loar I B. Loar Mind and Meaning Cambridge 1981 Loar II Brian Loar "Two Theories of Meaning" In Truth and Meaning, G. Evans/J. McDowell Oxford 1976 Stalnaker I R. Stalnaker Ways a World may be Oxford New York 2003 |
| Church, A. | Stalnaker Vs Church, A. | II 127 Belief attribution/belief ascription/foreign-language/foreign language/Stalnaker: if O'Leary speaks another language it makes no difference for the explanation as long as he is somehow familiar with Venus. O’Leary's belief is one about mars and hesperus, not about language. Diagonalization/Stalnaker: works here likewise. Against: Belief on language use/conviction about language/Church/Burge/Stalnaker: Church 1954, Burge 1978): e.g. Alfred believes that "a fortnight" is a period of 10 days. This is then true in all possible worlds with this semantic rule for English and wrong in others. Translation/Church: problem: there is no translation test for it! (if an error is in play). E.g. a translation into German would not express the same because there is an equivalent for "a fortnight" in German. Stalnaker: Church seems to say with this that the proposition cannot express what it seems to express. Solution/Church: metalanguage. StalnakerVsChurch: we can explain the failure of translation tests without this conclusion: II 128 Solution/Stalnaker: diagonalization: translation into another language will change the possible contexts for propositions. |
Stalnaker I R. Stalnaker Ways a World may be Oxford New York 2003 |
| Loar, B. | Stalnaker Vs Loar, B. | II 195 Narrow Content/Loar/Stalnaker: (Loar 1987, 1988): Loar has an ingenious thesis and good examples that allow us to better understand the internalism. StalnakerVsLoar: his defense of internalism is, however, not entirely convincing. Stalnaker: I believe that something like Loar's narrow content will play a role in intentional explanation but that it will not be narrow content! II 203 Content/that-clause/Loar/Stalnaker: "loose connection": here there shall be a certain way how the world appears to the thinker and this be a purely internal characteristic of the thinker. Language/content/problem/Loar: our language is permeated by social and causal presuppositions so it can only inaccurately detect our internal content. Stalnaker: pro, but I do not think that the belief states are themselves infected one whit less causally and socially! II 204 "loose connection"/Loar: (e.g. Paul, arthrite) Problem: what things about the world of which Paul believes that he is in make Paul's convictions true? The ascription of "I have arthrite in the ankle" expresses something else than the ascription of "J’ai l’arthrite dans ma cheville". StalnakerVsLoar: I also think that this is a mystery, but about ascription. I do not think that supports an internalism. Truthmaker/conviction/possible World/poss.w./Stalnaker: are the facts about the world as it appears to Paul internal or facts on the language use in Paul's environment? Ascription/to make true/Stalnaker: to answer the question, we need a theory on what makes belief ascriptions (ascriptions of content) true or false. Solution/Stalnaker: we need a causal information-theoretical approach that uses counterfactual conditionals. And I do not see how this could go internalistic. Counterfactual conditional/co.co./Stalnaker: (externalistic) one might assume that Paul would be in another state when the world would be different. Or Paul is in his internal state iff the world is actual in this certain way. ((s) But that excludes illusions). externalistic: that would be non-internalistic because it is based on general causal regularities. Problem/Stalnaker: the same problems arise that already appeared in Loar's belief ascription. Content/Loar/Stalnaker: after Loar there are two dimensions, which are connected to a mental state: a) a purely internal content – the way how the world appears to the thinker – with it behavior is actually explained. II 205 b) a social content (to what the ascriptions refer). Stalnaker: it is not clear to me what role b) shall play. Content/StalnakerVsLoar: thesis: if we describe it properly psychological and social content fall together. Loar's examples do not show that psychological content is narrow. Loar: thesis: there are phenomenological reasons why the way the world appears to the thinker must be an internal property of the thinker. II 205 privileged access/Loar/Stalnaker: Loar's phenomenological argument for his internalism is the privileged access we have to ourselves. We know what our thoughts are about. LoarVsBurge/LoarVsExternalism: privileged access is incompatible with the anti-individualism. (Team: Loar per internalism, Loar per individualism). II 206 Loar: thesis: it is hard to see how I could be wrong about my purely semantic judgment that my thought about Freud is about Freud - assuming Freud exists timelessly. StalnakerVsLoar: this is true but why is this in conflict with the externalism? LoarVsExternalism/Stalnaker: Loar's arguments are based on observations of the externalist analysis of the reference relation. logical form: (of the argument);: I do not judge that I stand in relation R to x ("R") be an externalist conception of this relation of aboutness or reference). aboutness/"about"/Loar/Stalnaker: therefore "R" cannot be a correct analysis of the aboutness relation to which I have privileged access. aboutness/"about"/Loar: it is implausible that I, to know that my thoughts are about Freud, need an opinion on a causal-historical relation to him. Such a relation has no one properly characterized yet. StalnakerVsLoar: two things are wrong about this: 1. a philosophical analysis of a concept may be correct, even if a competent user of the concept does not know the analysis. 2. the externalism does not specify that the aboutness-relation is analyzable. Burge: proposes no analysis Kripke: (in his defense of the causal theory) does not assert that this is reductionist. Loar/StalnakerVsLoar: he is right that my "pre-critical" perspective, "that my thought that my thought about Freud is a thought about Freud" does apparently not need an externalist concept. ((s) "drastic content". see below). II 209 Context dependency/ascription/Loar/Stalnaker: Loar shows us, however, correctly that belief-ascriptions are context-dependent. And he is also right to accept realization conditions for it. Realization conditions/StalnakerVsLoar: but these give us no opportunity to come to purely internal properties of the believer Def content/Stalnaker: (whether psychological or social) is a way to put us in touch with others and to our environment. |
Stalnaker I R. Stalnaker Ways a World may be Oxford New York 2003 |
| Mentalesese | Stalnaker Vs Mentalesese | II 234 Semantic structure/belief/Stalnaker: beliefs can also be about semantic structure or about internal or external representations with a semantic structure. You can believe that a belief has a certain semantic structure II 235 without assuming a certain truth value of this belief! Semantics/belief/belief ascription/Stalnaker: why is semantic knowledge or lack of knowledge relevant to the problem of belief objects? Informational content: e.g. M and N have the same informational content. Suppose x believes M but not N. Solution/Stalnaker: then it must be the way that x either does not know what content M has or does not know what content N has. And that is purely semantic information. Information/content/belief/Stalnaker: thesis: so there must always be a difference in the information not only in the way the content is saved. (> StalnakerVsMentalese, ((s) > hyperintensionality: this concept is here not used by Stalnaker.). Since the believer precisely distinguishes between M and N a (semantic) information about the difference between necessary equivalent statements must be available to him! Semantic knowledge: is in simple cases obvious. E.g. if O’Leary does not know that 12 = a dozen (Stalnaker: a fortnight = 14 days) then he is missing information on the semantic value of certain words. ((s) Semantic value/Stalnaker/(s): e.g. the semantic value of "a dozen" is twelve pieces. (or a fortnight = two weeks). |
Stalnaker I R. Stalnaker Ways a World may be Oxford New York 2003 |
| Possible Worlds | Stalnaker Vs Possible Worlds | I 49 Possible world/poss.w./knowledge/mathematics/StalnakerVsLewis/Stalnaker: I am inclined to say that the poss.w.-theory makes assumptions about the nature of their properties that are - unlike the corresponding assumptions of mathematical platonism - incompatible with the representation of the connection between the knowledge subjects and their objects in the case of poss.w.. poss.w./MR/VsModal realism/knowledge/verificationism/StalnakerVsLewis: the modal realist cannot cite any verificationist principles for what he calls his knowledge. Conclusion: problem: the MR cannot on the one hand say that poss.w. things are of the same kind as the actual world (contingent physical objects) and say on the other hand that poss.w. are things of which we know by the same kind like of numbers, sets, functions. ((s) Namely no real existing things.). I 53 StalnakerVsLewis: he contradicts himself because his other thesis about poss.w. about which we can have substantial beliefs contradicts his definition of content (see above). I 58 Contradiction/Lewis: there is no object howsoever fantastic about which one could tell the truth by contradicting oneself. Footnote: Takashi YagisawaVsLewis: why not? What should you expect otherwise? Impossible things are impossible. II 20 Belief ascription/solution/Stalnaker: I always wonder how the poss.w. would be according to what the believer believes. E.g. Pierre: for him there are two cities (Londres and London) E.g. Lingens in the library: for him there are two men, one named "Lingens" about which the other reads something. Relations theory/RelTh/Stalnaker: this can reconcile with the assumption that propositions are the belief objects. (Team: Stalnaker pro Relations theory? (1999)) Index/belief/Stalnaker: nevertheless I believe that convictions have an irreducible indexical element. Solution/Lewis: sets of centered poss.w. as belief objects. StalnakerVsLewis: although I have accepted that such poss.w. then include a representation of the mental state of the believer. But that is not what it is about! It is not sufficient that poss.w. that are compatible with one's convictions then include a person who has these convictions (> e.g. Lingens), the believer must identify himself with the person who has this thought! Proposition/identification/self-identification/Stalnaker: I am not suggesting that this identification is fulfilled by the belief in a proposition. I now think that this is not at all about some kind of cognitive performance. Indexical conviction/Stalnaker: (E.g. Perry: memory loss, library, e.g. Lewis: 2 gods (2 omniscient gods, e.g. Castaneda: memory loss): indexical unknowing. Stalnaker: thesis: people do not differ in what they believe. II 21 E.g. O'Leary knows that he is in the basement and that Daniels is in the kitchen. And Daniels knows the same thing: that he is in the kitchen and O'Leary in the basement. Everyone knows who and where he is and who and where the other is. The poss.w. that are compatible with the convictions of the two are the same. They argue about nothing. Yet there is an obvious difference in their doxastic situation: O'Leary identifies himself with the one in the basement and Daniels identifies himself as one who is in the kitchen. poss.w. semantics/StalnakerVsPossible worlds semantics/Stalnaker: this difference in the belief states of the two is not reflected by a set of poss.w. as belief state. Solution/Lewis: self-ascription of properties, or - equivalently - sets of centered poss.w.. StalnakerVsLewis: I do not want that. StalnakerVsLewis: problem: it is wrong to treat the difference in perspective as a dispute (disagreement). The two argue about nothing. Problem: it is not sure if one can express their agreement with the fact that the set of their uncentered poss.w. is the same. Because E.g. Heimson/Perry/Stalnaker: (Heimson believes "I am David Hume") all his impersonal beliefs about Hume are correct. Suppose they are the same convictions as the convictions of Hume about Hume. Stalnaker: nevertheless it would be wrong to say that they argue about nothing. ((s) unlike O'Leary and Daniels). II 134 Localization/space/time/self-localization/logical space/Lewis/Stalnaker: logical space/Lewis/Stalnaker: set of poss.w. from which one selects one. Self-localization/physical: in space and time. We usually know where we are. ((s) but we never know all poss.w. in which we could be localized, we cannot distinguish all poss.w. because we do not know everything). Gods example/Stalnaker: the two know exactly where they are in the logical space. II 135 But they do not know where within this poss.w. they are. LewisVsTradition: the doctrine of the proposition is focused only on one of the two types of localized belief. Generalization: is what we need and for that the transition from propositions to properties (as belief objects) serves. II 144 Gods example/Stalnaker: this is also a case of unknowing, which of two indistinguishable poss.w. is actual. One is actually the actual world while the other exactly the sam, with the exception that the god who sits in the actual world on the highest mountain is this time sitting on the coldest mountain and in fact with all the properties that the god on the highest mountain actually has. ((s) two individuals change places but keep all the properties. This is only possible if localization is not a property) Omniscience/Stalnaker: then you have to say, the two gods are not really omniscient regarding propositions, but rather omniscient in relation to purely qualitative criteria. LewisVsStalnaker: Lewis rejects this explanation for two reasons: 1. because he represents the counterpart theory (c.th.) that makes the cross world identity superfluous or meaningless. 2. even without counterpart it would not work because Assuming that the two gods of world W have traded places in world V assuming the god on the highest knows that his world is W, not V. Assuming he is omniscient with respect to all propositions not only the qualitative propositions. II 145 V: the world V cannot be relevant because he knows that he does not live there. Problem: there are still two mountains in a poss.w. W where he after all what he knows can live. StalnakerVsLewis: that does not answer the question: you cannot simply stipulate that the God in W knows something and not V. Because after the explanation we proposed that leads to the fact that he knows on which mountain he lives. Lewis/Stalnaker: his explanation is plausible if one conceives it as a metaphor for a location in the logical space: logical space/Lewis/Stalnaker: assume that a map of the logical space divided into large regions match the poss.w. and in smaller subdivisions represent the locations within poss.w.. Important argument: then we can tell someone in which large region he is without telling him exactly where he is located in it. Modal Realism/MR/logical space/Stalnaker: for him this image might be appropriate. Actualism/logical space/localization/Stalnaker: for the actualism this image is misleading: to know in which country you are is different to know where in the country you are but it is not so clear that there is a difference between the fact that one knows anything about in which poss.w. one is and knowing which poss.w. is the actual. Lewis also admits this. Stalnaker: my approach seems to be really close to the one of Lewis, but no. Centered poss.w.: one should perhaps instead of indistinguishable poss.w. speak of centered worlds (after Quine). These are then distinguishable. Indistinguishability/poss.w./Stalnaker: distinct but indistinguishable poss.w. would then be the same worlds but with different centers. Attitude/properties/propositions/centered world/Lewis: to treat objects of attitudes as sets of centered poss.w. makes them to properties instead of propositions. Centered poss.w./Stalnaker: I agree that possible situations normally, perhaps even essential, are centered in the sense of a representation of a particular mental state. II 146 StalnakerVsLewis: but this makes the approach (gods example) more complicated when it comes to the relations between different mental states. E.g. to compare past with current states is then more difficult, or relations between the convictions of different people. Information/communication/Stalnaker: we need then additional explanation about how information is exchanged. Two examples: E.g. O'Leary is freed from his trunk and wonders at around nine: a) "What time was it when I wondered what time it was?" Stalnaker: that is the same question like the one he asked then. When he learns that it was three o'clock, his doubt has been eliminated. Solution: the doubt is eliminated since all possible situations (poss.w.) in which a thought occurs at two different times are involved. The centers of these situations have moved in the sense that it is now nine o'clock and O'Leary no longer in the trunk but it may be that the first occurrence of the then thought is what O'Leary is now thinking about. Important argument: this moving of the center does not require that the poss.w. that the propositions characterize are changed. b) "What time was it when I wondered if it was three or four?". (If he wondered twice) Indistinguishability: even if the two incidents were indistinguishable for O'Leary, it may still be that it was the first time which O'Leary remembers at around nine o'clock. StalnakerVsLewis: his approach is more complicated. According to his approach we have to say at three o'clock, O'Leary wonders about his current temporal localization in the actual world (act.wrld.) instead of wondering in what poss.w. he is. Versus: at nine, things are quite different: now he wonders if he lives in a poss.w. in which a particular thought occurred at three or four. This is unnecessarily complicated. E.g. Lingens, still in the library, meets Ortcutt and asks him "Do you know who I am?" – "You are my cousin, Rudolf Lingens!". Stalnaker: that seems to be a simple and successful communication. Information was requested and given. The question was answered. II 147 Proposition/Stalnaker: (Propositions as belief objects) Ortcutt's answer expresses a proposition that distinguishes between possible situations and eliminates Lingen's doubt. StalnakerVsLewis: according to his approach (self-ascription of properties), it is again more complicated: Lingens: asks if he correctly ascribes himself a certain set of properties i. Ortcutt: answers by ascribing himself a completely different set of properties. Lingens: has to conclude then subsequently himself the answer. So all the answers are always indirect in communication. ((s) also StalnakerVsChisholm, implicit). Communication/Lewis/Chisholm/StalnakerVsLewis/StalnakerVsChsholm: everyone then always speaks only about himself. Solution/Stalnaker: Lewis would otherwise have to distinguish between attitudes and speech acts and say that speech acts have propositions as object and attitudes properties as an object. Problem/StalnakerVsLewis: Lewis cannot say by intuition that the content of Ortcutt's answer is the information that eliminates Lingen's doubt. That is also a problem for Perry's approach. (> StalnakerVsPerry) |
Stalnaker I R. Stalnaker Ways a World may be Oxford New York 2003 |
| Putnam, H. | Stalnaker Vs Putnam, H. | II 23 Belief ascription/belief attribution/externalism/anti-individualism/wide content/Burge/Stalnaker: thesis: the ascription of wide content is generally only an indirect and vague way to describe underlying facts described more directly by the narrow content. Narrow content/StalnakerVsNarrow content/StalnakerVsPutnam/Stalnaker: n.c. is obscure and confused. E.g. twin earth: it are the properties of the convictions that are "wide" not the content itself. II 24 Def "organismic contribution"/Dennett: (Dennett 1982): contribution to the belief content: an intrinsic component e.g. of water. Analogy e.g. mass as it contributes to weight. Thesis: one might view intentional properties as intrinsic components of convictions. StalnakerVs: yet it is not clear whether one should establish the distinction narrow / wide in the content. |
Stalnaker I R. Stalnaker Ways a World may be Oxford New York 2003 |
| Quine, W.V.O. | Stalnaker Vs Quine, W.V.O. | I 71 Essentialism/today/VsQuine: most modal logicians today contradict Quine and accept the connection between modal logic (ML) and essentialism and accept the essentialism. Instead of, like Quine back then, saying: "so much the worse for quantified ML" they say, "so much the better for the essentialism". I 72 Essence/essentialism/essential property/LeibnizVsQuine/Stalnaker: contradicted Quine in the first way: thesis: each property of each individual constitutes his nature and only the existence of the thing as a whole is contingent. today: David Lewis with his counterpart theory is a modern successor of Leibniz. Counterpart/Lewis: things of the actual world have counterparts in other possible worlds (poss.w.). Things that resemble them more than any other thing. Therefore, no individual can have accidental properties, properties that they are lacking in another poss.w.. I 201 Quine/Stalnaker: taught us to be skeptical about the idea of necessity, analyticity and knowledge a priori. However, he did not question the empiricist assumptions that these concepts stand and fall with each other. KripkeVsQuine/Stalnaker: only Kripke pulled apart these concepts by finding examples of truths that are necessary although they are only a posteriori knowable and those that still are contingent but still a priori knowable. II 24 Belief/Mentalese/Field/Stalnaker: his thesis was to reinterpret the intentional-psychological relation into a psychological but non-intentional and a semantic but not psychological relationship - between a sentence and the expressed proposition. Belief ascription/Quine/Stalnaker: his goal was to generalize the ascription. By this an obligation to singular propositions should be avoided. StalnakerVsQuine: but the project changes its character when it comes to the general case. De re-ascription/Stalnaker: should better not be regarded as indirect and vague, II 25 but simply as examples that show the essential characteristics of the intentional: Ascription: if we ascribe intentional states, the types, properties and relations to which we refer here, we see the world and with them we characterize the world as someone sees it. Important argument: that is just not an indirect but a direct way to get to the content. II 160 Def singular proposition/Stalnaker: here e.g. a singular proposition ascribes Ortcutt to be a spy. Structured singular proposition/Stalnaker: (for those for whom propositions are structured entities): then singular propositions are those which have an individual as a constituent. (StalnakerVsStructured propositions). Singular proposition/poss.w.-semantics/semantics of possible worlds/Stalnaker: for those for whom the propositions are sets of poss.w., (Stalnaker pro)): then a singular proposition is a proposition whose truth depends on the properties of a particular individual. Singular proposition/Stalnaker: the identity of a singular proposition is a function of an individual instead of a concept or givenness of an individual. StalnakerVsQuine: this semantic approach is simpler and less ad hoc than that of Quine. II 161 De re/ascription/belief de re/singular proposition/sing Prop/StalnakerVsQuine/Stalnaker: the semantic approach understands the ascription of a belief de re then as ascription of a particular faith (unlike Quine). What it means to believe a singular proposition? How is it to believe that Ortcutt himself is a spy? And not only that the person fulfills the description or a belief subject that is given in a certain way? Problem: suppose Ralph knows Ortcutt in two different ways (beach, brown hat). Which singular proposition about Ortcutt does he believe? bad solution: many authors think that there would have to be a special relation of acquaintance here. Acquaintance/Stalnaker: problem: to provide a semantic relation for them. 1. the first strategy makes belief de re then too easy: e.g. Poirot believes that it was the butler simply due to the two facts that 1. the butler was it and 2. Poirot believes that it was the person who was it. 2. the second strategy makes belief de re too difficult: then Ralph, who knows Ortcutt, has two contradictory convictions. Solution: a) to strengthen the relation of acquaintance so that misidentifications are impossible. Vs: such mistakes are almost always possible! Then you could have only de re-convictions about yourself. b) the "divide-and-conquer" argument: we tell the story of Ralph in two parts. 1. Ralph sees Ortcutt with a brown hat 2. Ralph sees Ortcutt at the beach. II 162 Then it is quite natural that in Ralph believes in one story that Ortcutt is a spy, and not in the other story. There is no reason to assume that Ralph would have had to change his mind in between. II 163 De re/ascription/belief de re/StalnakerVsQuine/StalnakerVsKaplan/Stalnaker: thesis: we assume instead propositions as sets of poss.w.. Pragmatic Analysis/pragmatics/Stalnaker: has in common with the semantic that certain convictions are ascribed but - unlike the semantic - it does not assume a particular type of propositions and also does not require an increased acquaintance relationship. That means the individuals of which something is believed are not constituents of the proposition. Proposition: its purpose is to pick out a subset of the relevant context set. Ascription/de re/Stalnaker: (all authors): the way how the ascribing formulates its ascription is independent of the way the believer would formulate his conviction or the way how he thinks about the individual Pragmatic approach/Stalnaker: (…+…) |
Stalnaker I R. Stalnaker Ways a World may be Oxford New York 2003 |
| Tradition | Stalnaker Vs Tradition | II 7 Presupposition/StalnakerVsTradition: should not be explained in concepts of semantic content: the truth conditions (tr.c.) of the propositions that contain these presuppositions. Thesis: instead, they should be understood independently of the tr.cond. as a propositional attitude, not as a semantic relation. Things that we - in certain contexts - take for granted. Präsupposition/Stalnaker: is context-dependent. Def Presupposition condition/Stalnaker: that a speaker would not use a propositoin S which presupposes that P, if he does not accept P in this context. II 8 But this describes only a surface phenomenon, it is not a theoretical concept. II 130 Index words/indexical convictions/ascription/belief ascription/Stalnaker: the problems of ascriptions in which index words occur were lately treated by Lit: Castaneda 1966, 1967, Perry 1977, 1979, Lewis 1979a. Belief object/index words/StalnakerVsTradition: thesis: we need a against tradition radically altered conception of the belief objects when index words are in the game. Proposition/abstract object/Stalnaker: I understand a proposition as an abstract object abstract object/object/abstract/Stalnaker: e.g. a proposition is an abstract object. |
Stalnaker I R. Stalnaker Ways a World may be Oxford New York 2003 |
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| Disputed term/author/ism | Pro/Versus |
Entry |
Reference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Functionalism | Versus | Field II 30 Field: per materialism, per physicalism -FieldVsFunctionalism / FieldVsLewis: not sufficient for Brentano s problem - FieldVsInstrumentalism: belief ascriptions can be literally true and they are not just useful tools. |
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 |
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